Alex Albon bagged his second points finish of the 2026 F1 season, finishing P8 in the Monaco GP on Sunday.
The Williams driver has had a tough start to this campaign. While car issues have been a problem for him and he was taken out by Piastri in Montréal, Carlos Sainz has had a pace advantage so far. A theme that started in the second part of last season.
Nonetheless, the Thai had a good weekend on the Monte Carlo streets. He qualified P11, beating his teammate by 0.028s. Albon missed out on Q3 by 0.025s.
In the race itself, Albon was running in a very solid P10 through the first stint, with Liam Lawson easing away from him as it went on.
Once it became clear points were possible for both Williams cars, Sainz held up the cars behind him to allow the Thai to pit and rejoin ahead. Then, the roles were swapped to allow the #55 to get away and create a gap to have a free stop. It worked — for the most part.
Having locked up at the chicane backing up Lindblad, Hülkenberg, Ocon and Colapinto, Albon made a further mistake at the final corner and it allowed the British rookie to take the spot.
Once the Spaniard pitted, they swapped back. However, Arvid Lindblad would remain ahead when the red flag was thrown as he had not pitted. The #23 was P9 on the restart.
On the restart, the two-time podium finisher gained a spot thanks to George Russell’s penalty. Pierre Gasly created enough of gap to be P7.
Albon on the team games and deployment problems at the 2026 F1 Monaco GP
Speaking in the print media pen afterwards, the 30-year-old explained how deployment issues cost him half a second a lap. He was complaining on the radio throughout about issues.
Despite some concerns on the radio about how they would manage things when trying to back cars up, Albon’s main annoyance was allowing Linblad past via his error in the 2026 F1 Monaco GP.
“I’m not unhappy with the teamwork. I understand how this works.
“More just, I felt very vulnerable out there. I had a deployment issue the whole race. I was losing four, five tenths down the straights.
“Trying to do the same game as last year, but if anything I was frustrated more because I felt like I let the team down. I lost a position to Arvid [Lindblad] into Turn 1, partly down to my deployment issue.
“I thought, while I was trying to be smart, we’ve now actually got both cars out of the points. At the time, I didn’t know the situation of who was having DNFs and whatnot.
“For me, it was like, ‘are we too clever at that time in the race?’
“In the end, it worked out. I think if the red flag didn’t happen, Arvid obviously wouldn’t finish in front of us.
“In many ways, yeah, we were okay. But at the time, I thought, there’s no way I’m going to be able to hold up these guys behind me.”
Team tactics
Alex Albon confirmed it was discussed by Williams before the race to back cars up if the opportunity to score points arose. Thanks to Max Verstappen’s DNF at the start, it became a very strong possibility.
“It was all going to plan, yeah.
“Then the DNFs just made more things happen in the window. More opportunities to play the team game and get both cars in the points.
“We shifted very well. Just I think, obviously, we were compromised because of my issue on my car.”
Gains but still work to do with the 2026 Williams F1 challenger
In qualifying, Albon trails Sainz 2-4 in the Grand Prix format, and 0-3 in Sprint version. It has been a difficult start to 2026 for the Thai in the FW48.
While Albon says he did feel better in the car during the 2026 F1 Monaco GP weekend, there is work to do. Alongside his own comfort to get a better feeling from the package, deployment issues are persisting.
“Yeah, there’s definitely progress.
“I was going to say, this weekend we were deployment issue free. But we were not.
“We’re still going after some gremlins, but it has just been the most normal weekend. Built a good rhythm throughout the weekend.
“To be honest with you, still not comfortable with the car, but getting to grips with it.”
