Albon looks back on Red Bull farewell: 'It was terrible'
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Alexander Albon is relieved to be back in Formula 1 thanks to Williams. The driver was forced to leave Red Bull Racing at the end of 2020 and although he is grateful to the Austrian racing stable, the period also caused a huge disappointment.
Pierre Gasly came to sit in the place of the departed Daniel Ricciardo in 2019, but it was not a successful partnership. In the middle of the season, Red Bull therefore decided to swap him for Albon who was driving for Toro Rosso at the time.
Albon had to say a forced farewell
Albon experienced a challenging time at Red Bull. While he himself had to get used to Red Bull's level of performance, in Max Verstappen he had a teammate who got the most out of his car almost every race. Nevertheless, it seemed for a long time that Albon would continue to race for Red Bull in 2021, until the Austrians came up with disappointing news at the end of 2020.
"It was terrible. It got announced that I wasn't going to be a racing driver pretty late," Albon recalled in the Beyond the Grid podcast. Yet behind the scenes, Red Bull continued to have faith in him. "They still believed in me and still trusted me. And I still have a great relationship with them."