George Russell has known Alex Albon since their childhood karting days and having known him this long, the 26-year-old has also witnessed some of the Thai-British driver’s most embarrassing moments firsthand. One such incident that Russell recalled, in fact, took place recently when Albon had to go through a trash can to search for his missing car keys and wallet.
The Mercedes driver recalled this anecdote when asked which driver was most likely to miss a flight. Without much hesitation, the first name that came to Russell’s mind was his good mate Albon, simply because of how forgetful the Williams driver is.
“I know him quite well. He’s very forgetful,” said Russell in an interview with the SPORTbible. “He once left his keys and wallet on the dinner tray at lunch at Williams, and it got transferred straight into the dustbin”.
Imagine being a driver and yet losing out on your car keys. Albon, realizing his blunder, went back and searched.
“So he had to go looking through,” Russell added. “I think he pulled the dustbin close to his car to see if the door would open to sort of see if his keys were inside before rummaging around”.
This makes Russell confident that if any driver were to miss a flight, it would most likely be Albon. Maybe it could be because the Thai driver forgets the date of his travel as well. Another current driver who grew up with Albon and Russell and perhaps has many such stories to share from their childhood together is Lando Norris.
Albon was Russell and Norris’ hero
Albon, being a few years older than both Russell and Norris, was unsurprisingly a driver both Britons looked up to while growing up. Both drivers made this claim together in an interview with Sky Sports last year when asked to share their thoughts about their karting days with Albon.
“I actually not sure we did kart against each other,” replied Russell, speaking of whether he and Norris took part in karting against Albon. “Lando and I karted when we were… [Norris interrupts and says when he was a baby] when you were a baby”.
Russell then further added, “Lando and I looked up to Alex [Albon]. Alex was our hero”. It is remarkable that after all those years, the three are now competing against each other in F1.
my best friend? i’d say alex albon!!!! pic.twitter.com/qo3JUuXisR
— (ju)rídico george russell (@russellsbff) February 7, 2025
All three have had different paths to the pinnacle of motorsport. Albon’s career began back in 2016 when he competed in the GP3 series and finished a fantastic second before moving to Formula 2 in 2017. After a subpar year in 2017 with ART Grand Prix, he moved to DAMS in 2018 when he finished a brilliant third.
This is the kind of performance that convinced Red Bull to sign the Thai-British driver to Toro Rosso in 2019. Russell and Norris, on the other hand, had even more successful junior careers than their ‘hero’.
How Russell and Norris got to F1 side by side
Russell not only won the GP3 series in his maiden season with ART Grand Prix in 2017 but also won the Formula 2 Championship in the very next year with the same team. This makes him only the fourth driver in F1 history, alongside Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri, and now Gabriel Bortoleto, to win the F3 and the F2 championships in his maiden seasons.
Norris, meanwhile, won the F3 European Championship in 2017 before finishing second in the 2018 F2 Championship, the same season when Russell won.
After such impressive campaigns in F2, both Russell and Norris received their promotion to F1 in the same year in 2019. Russell joined Williams while Norris joined McLaren, the same team where the 25-year-old races until today.
