Alex Albon Recalls Inspiring Revival After Mom’s Prison Exile Crushed Life as He Knew It

Alex Albon’s rise to F1 has been well documented. Be it the interviews in Drive to Survive or other news articles covering his younger career, pretty much all the facts are publicly available. He had an amazing karting career, winning against drivers like reigning world champion Max Verstappen. Despite his success in the juniors, though, he made his way into Formula 1 later than others his age. And it was all to do with the sudden changes in his personal life, changes that almost uprooted his family and a potential career in F1.

As the Thai-British driver was taking steps toward reaching the pinnacle of motorsport, his life outside motorsport took a turn for the worse. All of a sudden, Albon and his four siblings were forced apart from their mother, leading to the “hardest year” of Albon’s life. Despite everything he was going through, he showed incredible resilience to stage a come-back and make his way to Formula 1.

It was up and down and back up for Alex Albon

When Alex Albon was just 12, his mother was sentenced to 6 years in prison for fraud in 2012. Kankamol Albon defrauded several private investors of £7.5million by selling luxury cars at discounted rates with a promise to sell them at higher profits. The thing is, the buyers never received the cars. When she went to prison and served three years, Albon was in a critical stage of his motorsport career. He’d just made his shift from karting to single-seater. Needless to say, the sudden changes in his life didn’t bode well for his prospects, and he opened up about them on the High Performance Podcast.

Speaking about the time when his mother was serving her sentence, Albon explained, “I lost a lot of general confidence when I had this issue. I went from karting to cars. I struggled in cars. Didn’t have the feeling, didn’t have the knowledge of single-seaters to begin with. I struggled in general life confidence. Everything started to fall away a little bit. [They] become a little more fragmented in just who I was as a person.” But that’s when things started changing for the now-Williams driver.

When asked how he picked himself up during that challenging time, he credited the people in his life. “I think a lot of it is just time and being surrounded by good people. At that time, my stepdad took care of me, [and] my siblings too.” After that, it was a domino effect. “When I think about it, it was just a little bit of confidence here, a little bit of, ‘Okay, that was good. This race weekend went a little bit better than before.’ I just remember there was a winter test after quite an average season. I was quickest in this test. Honestly, from that point on, I was quick. After that, my single-seater career started to go back to where my karting career had left off.” 

Read More: Alex Albon Exposes “Toxic” Aftermath of His Red Bull Failures in an Honest Confession

Following that fateful winter testing, Albon found himself again. His career path to F1 continued to take form—from Formula Renault to Formula 2. But did you know he could’ve very well been in Formula E rather than Formula 1?

Alex Albon’s almost-move to Formula E

You read it right. Albon almost didn’t make it through to F1. After his revival, the Thai-British driver competed in Formula 2 in 2018. While he wanted a drive in F1 more than anything else, the only offer that came knocking was a Formula E one. Before signing the contract, though, Albon did make a call to Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko. When he was denied any chances of getting a 2019 seat in F1, Albon accepted his fate. But soon after, Marko came knocking.

Thanks to a domino effect triggered by Daniel Ricciardo leaving for Renault at the end of 2018, a last-minute seat at Torro Roso (now AlphaTauri) opened up. On the last race weekend of the F2 season, Marko had a last-minute interview with Albon for the seat. However, the 27-year-old didn’t make the switch before lying to Helmut and getting caught in the interview for it! 

What do you think about the journey Alex Albon had to make it to Formula 1?

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