Albon on time next to Verstappen: 'Of course Red Bull listened to him'
In mid-2019, Alexander Albon became Max Verstappen's teammate at Red Bull Racing. He replaced Pierre Gasly, the Frenchman performing disappointingly alongside the Dutchman. In the end, Red Bull also found Albon not good enough, the British-Thai was replaced by Sergio Perez at the end of 2020. At the British Express Albon looks back on his time alongside Verstappen.
During his debut season, Albon was immediately promoted from the then Toro Rosso to Red Bull. Like Verstappen, Albon was transferred in the middle of the season. Gasly performed very disappointingly alongside the Dutchman, so the British-Thai was given a chance at the top team. But Albon too could not match the speed of the two-time world champion and had to leave the team after only a year and a half. These days, he has found his place with the Williams team.
Albon understands Red Bull
For years it has been said that Red Bull would only develop its car around Verstappen's driving style. The Dutchman has a very specific driving style, he likes a front end that steers extremely well and has no problem if the rear then breaks out a bit. Many other drivers cannot handle this as well as Verstappen.
“Of course, you’re going to listen to the driver who’s getting the performance in and getting a good job because the potential is more. I’m not going to call myself guilty for it but people misinterpret my words where they think what I'm trying to say is the car is built around him." said the Williams driver.
How can you not like Albon? I'd like to see him at a top team again with more experience now
As an engineer, you want to be able to come up with the fastest possible car, even though it it might not be the easiest to drive. So, what the team needs is to find is a driver that is able to handle a difficult to-drive-car to get the maximum performance out of it, rather than to design one that is easier for most drivers to handle, but might ultimately be not as quick.
Well that's only true to a point. The goal of the team is to win races, not to come up with a hypothetical fastest car. If there is only one person on the planet Earth capable of keeping this fastest possible car on the track, and he is contracted to another team for $50 million a year for the next five years, building that car is not a strategy for winning races. If we need to resurrect or clone Fangio to drive this hypothetical car, it also is not a strategy for winning races. If you build your hypothetically fastest car and Max comes to you and says "you know what, I would be able to drive this thing a bit faster if you were to change XYZ, in many instances the engineers are going to change XYZ." They are not going to say "Well Max, we have built the perfect car you see. You just need to learn how to drive." Looking for the hypothetically perfect solution is not engineering. Mathematicians and physicists operate in the abstract and try to find perfect solutions, not engineers (no offense).
"Of course, you’re going to listen to the driver who’s getting the performance in and getting a good job because the potential is more." Simple as that. Driver A gets more potential out of the car than Driver B then Driver A's style suits the potential of the car; develop around that.
Of course, you’re going to listen to the driver who’s getting the performance in and getting a good job because the potential is more. I’m not going to call myself guilty for it but people misinterpret my words where they think what I'm trying to say is the car is built around him." said the Williams driver. Well said sir. All great teams build their car around their best driver for maximum performance and gain in the championship. Ferrari build their dominant car around shumi. Redbull their first dominant car around Vettel. Mercedes around Lewis. Now Redbull again around verstappen. It only makes sense to do so.
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