A Look Back: Abu Dhabi

Recalling Albono’s previous visits to the Yas Marina Circuit

Published

05 Dec 2024

Est Reading Time

2 min

Alex will be looking to channel the sprint of previous point-scoring trips to Abu Dhabi on Sunday.

AA23 enjoyed successful stints at the Yas Marina Circuit in the early stages of his Formula 1 career — recording a pair of impressive finishes while driving for Red Bull Racing.

The first of those came back in 2019, during our Thai racer’s maiden F1 season.

Having joined from Toro Rosso earlier in the campaign, Albono made a flying start to life with Red Bull — finishing sixth or higher in eight of his nine Grands Prix that year, including a P6 finish in Abu Dhabi.

Things went even better in 2020 when Alex placed P4 on Yas Island, as he narrowly missed out on a podium finish to third-place Lewis Hamilton.

Recent visits to the Gulf nation haven’t proved quite as fruitful, with P13 and P14 placings in 2022 and 2023, respectively, while driving for Williams Racing.

However, the latter of those was enough to see Williams rank P7 in last year’s Constructors’ Championship — thanks, in part, to Albono’s seven top-ten classifications and two points in the Qatar Sprint.

It is therefore no surprise that he was in positive spirits after the 2023 Abu Dhabi GP, saying:

“My race was okay; I don’t think it was the best following a bad start, but we seemed to recover for the second and third stint.

“Unfortunately, Yuki [Tsunoda] was too fast for us to have any involvement in his race, however, it’s been the hard work across the year that’s allowed us to seal P7 in the Constructors’ Championship.

“Congratulations to the team, including everyone at track and back at the factory.

“Looking at the progress we’ve made, it’s a great achievement. I’m also very proud of my performance, so I’ll give myself credit for what has been my strongest year in Formula 1.”

Alex will be hoping there’s more cause for celebration this weekend, as he bids to end the season strongly by securing points in Round 24.