Alex Albon reflects on the sharp contrast between Racing Bulls and Red Bull, explaining why young drivers struggle with the latter’s demands.
Alex Albon experienced the disappointment of leaving the Racing Bulls team – or Toro Rosso, as it was known to him in 2019 – to join Red Bull and face significant challenges. The Williams F1 driver believes the contrast is all the more difficult given that the Faenza cars are intuitive.
“The cars are on a knife-edge,” Albon said. “Max can drive it. I can speak from experience, I struggled with that car. I think with the experience I have now, I would be able to work around it, but it’s not something that feels natural to most drivers and that’s what we’re seeing now.”
“It’s also difficult because, maybe this is my own interpretation, but the Racing Bulls is quite a forgiving car. In 2019, it was quite well-balanced, it was very stable, it gave you a lot of confidence.”
“I think it naturally became that kind of car because they always have rookies in that car. The Red Bull is almost the extreme opposite and you go from a forgiving car to a difficult one, so you have to adapt to two very different cars.”
According to the Thai driver, the keys to success in that second car go beyond pure driving: “The driving is part of it, but it’s probably the smallest part. The bigger part is understanding the cars, the tyres, the technical side of things, as well as your own driving style.”
“When you’re starting out as a young driver, even in F1, you’re still learning what makes the car work, what makes me work, what compromises or lack of compromises you can make to help or not help in that situation.”
“Max can drive that car, he likes it a certain way and he can extract lap time from it, so there’s a bit of all that. And managing all the noise that comes with being the number two driver – that’s not easy for a young driver.”
