Albon hoped he could steal Verstappen's 'next race engineer'

James Urwin, Albon's current race engineer, is set to move into a factory-based role within Williams. The change is intended to give him a better work-life balance while allowing the British team to retain his extensive experience within the organization.

Hart was previously linked with a move to Williams. He is set to replace Gianpiero Lambiase as Verstappen's race engineer at Red Bull Racing. GPblog has also learned that the proposed move to Williams was never formalized and was based on speculation.

When GPblog asked Albon about Hart at the Hungaroring, the Thai-British driver confirmed his team's interest in Hart, who will not join the Grove-based outfit. He explained: "We obviously went for Tom, I think Tom's a great guy, a great engineer, but we've also got ideas in place.

He added: "No, [I didn't ask him myself]. We kind of had a list of people on our roster of ‘who do we want to get?’ Of course, Tom was someone that I saw as a name and I thought, ‘yeah, Tom's great.'"

Albon has experienced a difficult season so far in 2026. He is currently 16th in the drivers' standings with five points scored so far this season. He has not finished inside the top ten since the Monaco Grand Prix.