Who is Alexander Albon’s Father, Nigel Albon?

The current Red Bull F1 driver, Alexander Albon, made a lot of heads turn in 2019. Coming from a British-Thai background, he races under the Thai flag, even though he was born in Britain. He made the switch to Red Bull mid season from Toro Rosso owing to his impressive performance in the season.

Albon started racing at a very early age, competing in karting championships. His family thoroughly encouraged his passion. Hailing from Britain, his father, Nigel Albon was himself a racing enthusiast and motivated his son to purse the career moving forward.

Nigel Albon’s racing career

Alexander’s father Nigel used to be a British Race Car Driver. The last competition he took part in was Porsche Carerra Cup Asia while driving for Team Vertu in 2007.

Nigel started racing in 1993. His first competition was Renault Clip Cup in which he finished fifth. Harlow Motorsport employed him as their racer when he raced a Renault 19 in the British Touring Car Championship. Again he finished fifth with 108 points in the tournament. 2001 saw him race once in FIA GT Championship for the Gamon Porsche Team.

However, the highlight of his career was the 2002 Sepang 12 hours race. The race was won by Albon, along with his teammate, Tommy Lee and T. Hamman  driving their Porsche 911 GT3 for Jaseri Racing. The Sepang 12 hours race is a 12 hour endurance race, held annually at the Sepang circuit in the month of December.

From 2005, he spent his next three years in the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia with the highest finish position of fourth place, achieved in 2007.

Nigel Albon’s Personal Life

Nigel was married to Kankamol Albon for a while. They got separated after which Kankamol was sentenced to prison for running an exotic car dealership illegally. She was recently released in 2018 and has been living with her son.

Relationship with Alexander Albon

As mentioned, Nigel was the one who pushed his son Alexander Albon into racing. If not for him, we wouldn’t have been blessed with a racer like him. In one of the many interviews he gave after landing his place in F1, Alex explained his father’s passion for racing and that he was the one who took him to his first race and even got him his first kart. He later accompanied his son to most of his races, including his debuts. Alex and Nigel used to practice everyday made his son practice everyday after school for six months, having gotten him his own go kart at the age of seven.