Alex Albon Becomes the First Driver to Start 100 Races for Williams

HUNGARORING — Alex Albon went into the summer break as the first driver in Formula 1 history to start 100 Grands Prix for Williams. The round number landed at the Hungarian Grand Prix, after he’d already edged past Nigel Mansell’s old start mark in Barcelona.

Williams marked the weekend. Albon showed up in a cap that said what the paddock already knew. "Hitting 100 races with this team means a lot to me," he said in the team’s preview, calling the Grove years a journey he’s proud of. Then the hungrier line: "There's still so much more I want to achieve with Williams and in F1."

That ambition sits next to a hard first half under the new-for-2026 rules. The FW48 arrived late, skipped Barcelona’s shakedown, ran heavy, and never found the downforce Williams hoped for after parking 2025 development to chase this generation. Points have been scarce. Albon hasn’t scored since Monaco.

Until a B-spec package aimed at the late-September Azerbaijan Grand Prix shows up, he describes weekends as one compromise after another. Low speed, medium speed, and high speed don’t feel right on the same Sunday. Short on downforce, the car’s balance gets worse, and the FW48 wants to three-wheel through combined corners.

Team principal James Vowles has built Williams around keeping drivers inside the project instead of treating them like a swap when the spreadsheet turns red. Albon is into his fifth season at Grove after the Red Bull chapter ended. He talks about the place as a home that also piles on responsibility when the results lag.

"This year, we are obviously further back than we want to be, but you feel like this is not right," he told Autosport. The difference from 2022, when he first arrived, is that the garage no longer shrugs at the back of the midfield. It asks what comes next.

For Asian American and Asian Canadian fans, Albon is still the clearest Asian identity on the current grid. Thai flag on the suit, British racing passport, a top-team stint already behind him, and now the longest Williams tenure of any driver. He’s 30. He watches former Formula 2 rivals Lando Norris and George Russell fight at the front and frames their careers as parallel paths. He wants Grove to meet them again somewhere useful.

Hungary itself wasn’t a fairy-tale points finish. Albon’s own report card called it a hard fight to 17th on a track that exposed the car. The milestone went in the books anyway.

When F1 returns at Zandvoort on August 21–23, watch whether Williams can nurse the FW48 into Baku’s update window without losing the culture Albon keeps describing. We’ve written more on Yuki Tsunoda’s reserve-seat hunger, Zhou Guanyu’s Cadillac PROJECT 24 chapter, and Malaysia hosting the Bahrain GP at Sepang this autumn. The century is done. The car still isn’t.