Alexander Albon, Red Bull, Spa-Francorchamps, 2019

Albon needs to “rewire” his driving style after first Red Bull race

RaceFans Round-up

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In the round-up: Alexander Albon says he still has improvements to make after finishing fifth on his debut for Red Bull.

What they say

Albon said he was “quite happy” with fifth place in his first race for Red Bull but believes he has room for improvement:

To be honest there’s still definitely things I’m not comfortable with. It’s not that it’s not comfortable it’s just very different. It’s just rewiring the style of the Toro Rosso car and understanding the tricks and quirks of the Red Bull car.

That take a bit of time because initially everyone knows how to drive a car to a good level and then it’s just getting the extra tenths out which you need to understand the car, not just driving-wise but also set-up-wise.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

Is Lewis Hamilton right to object to the cheering which followed his crash in final practice?

Of course Hamilton has a point, but in the moment the big mass responds when they see the opponent fail; whoever that may be. Although Lewis has been dominating for so long, that some people love to seem him a bit further back.

But as a Dutch fan, a Verstappen fan and a F1 fan, I do feel embarrassed by the behavior of some ‘orange fans’, it is something we see mostly in football, and it is weird to see it in F1. In the Facebook groups you see them too, everything Max does is great and it is never his mistake. But luckily there are lots of real fans who acknowledge his failures and can also enjoy a good race without him. And Spa had a good race, and a truly deserved winner.

The tragic events showed us however that there is a cost to this, and Hamilton showed us in his comment that we are privileged to live in an era where accidents are an exception, I have seen the seventies, and the many horrific accidents that happened. The new fans this sport attracts are fantastic for the atmosphere, but there is always a division between the ‘personal’ fans and the ‘general’ fans, if I sometimes read the truly acid remarks about Max, I also shudder, but that is a part that is common in the current age of social media, where there is no ‘limiter’ between mouth and brain.

I am not a real Hamilton fan, but I admire and respect his talents, he is the one in the spotlight and deservedly so. This weekend we saw a terrible tragedy, for many fans the first time they saw the price racers have to pay. We also saw a brave young man, a great talent and a future champion win his first race. Let’s hope that we live to see all those great and young talents go in the spotlight too.
Walter Bravenboer

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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38 comments on “Albon needs to “rewire” his driving style after first Red Bull race”

  1. Albon is a big contrast to Gasly and specifically Kvyat. Change me, then change the car.
    We were onboard with him for quite a while last GP, he was stuck on mediums he was setting himself up for good exits out of slow corners but the car was not good out of the corners, he made no overtakes on exits but he was very quick into the corners. Max is obviously very quick and RBR know what they are doing, Albon just needs to follow their lead.

  2. Just a note here… Kvyat also started at the back and made his way to the top. In a Toro Rosso!

    Both gained 12 positions from the start (7 in the track).

    I guess so far Albon did ok. But he will need some extra performance to open a gap for his 2020 seat.

    1. True, but Kvyat used the Spec 4 engine while Red Bull reverted back to the Spec 2 for both cars (despite Albon using the Spec 4 in free practice and Max having won races with the Spec 3…) so he had a power advantage.

    2. The difference is that Albon finished as high up as he possibly could’ve, barring any Merc/Ferrari retirements.

      Even if he was allowed to qualify, there was no way he would’ve beaten even Bottas, given the circuit and car characteristics.

      You’d have to be very unreasonable to say he should’ve done more.

      1. By reading my comment, you will notice that I am saying he WILL have to do more.

        He did ok in that race, specially because was his first at RBR. Better than Gasly. But there’s a lot of good drivers out there that could do the same in a RBR.

        If he wants the seat, he will have to impress. Red Bull knows what Kvyat can do. Now they are acessing Albon’s potential.

  3. Will Albon finish the season ahead of Gasly in the driver standings? He is going to get less races in the Red Bull than Gasly.

    1. That should be a good thing for his future.

    2. Going by his first race in a Red Bull… he should be ahead of Gasly’s total with a couple of races to spare.

      1. @CC @todfod He’s 39 points behind him with eight races to go, but given the big car-advantage, he should be able to overhaul that gap.

  4. Can I just place this here; Renault’s strategy for Ricciardo was so bad it was comical. I’ve rarely seen a team mis-read a race so badly.

    Despite the poor start and lap 1 pitstop, he actually found himself in a pretty good position inside the top 10 at half-race distance, well poised for a change to fresh tires to come back through the field as others who pitted earlier started to run out of rubber.

    Giovinazzi was 2-3 seconds ahead of Ricciardo when he pitted, and re-caught and passed him back within 10 laps. Even Hulkenberg, who was over 5 seconds BEHIND Ricciardo when he pitted, came back and overtook him within 10 laps.

    Amazingly poor from Renault.

    1. @aussierod – it comes as no surprise that people were joking that Ferrari sent their strategists to Renault for Spa.

    2. Par for the course for Renault to be honest, they’ve had a lot of strategic mistakes since they came back to F1.

      What I’m surprised is they actually got the strategy right for Hülkenberg.

    3. Totally agree @aussie rod. They still had plenty of time to still pit him once he’d lost a few places and be better off overall. There was no pony in trying to keep track position when it was blatantly obvious that he wouldn’t be able to defend on tyres that old

    4. I initially thought this, but when they interviewed Riccardo after the race at some point, he gave a very plausible explanation for why they left him out for so long and said they really has no other option.

      I can’t for the life of me remember what he said, but I remember thinking “Ohhh, that makes sense”.

  5. Red Flag Punishment …

    Must find ways to stop the heinous concept of “Flat out racing”.
    More rules, more restrictions and F-E getting further away from road relevance. I understand what they are doing, but it is counter to all that motor racing is about.

    1. The problem is that in that series it’s more bumper cars than flat out racing. That’s mainly because they have Mickey Mouse tracks that are way to narrow and the fact that speeds are so low there’s relatively low risk in crashing in to someone on an attempt to push them out of the road.

      Some of the “moves” this past season were so blatant they need to do something but I’d prefer to see them improve the tracks than just penalise in the hope drivers will be more careful.

      1. I mostly agree @dbradock, though Lotterer does make a good point against these new rules too:

        “It is not always one driver who causes an incident and sometimes there is a factor like in Bern where, yes, you could say one driver triggered a shunt but actually there was always going to be issues down there at that chicane,” Lotterer told e-racing365.

        @rekibsn having mentioned the above, I do feel that it’s a valid choice by Formula E to not want (too much) racing where drivers don’t have to think about energy at all, given that a) there’s already quite a bit of close contact racing, unless the tracks don’t allow it and then giving them full energy will (in my opinion) not greatly enhance the actual racing, but will increase the energy of a crash; and b) energy management is an integral part of what Formula E set out to be.

      2. The problem is that in that series it’s more bumper cars than flat out racing.

        It’s basically Mario Kart on mini tracks for F1 rejects and wannabe’s that never quite made there. A lot of fans confuse the poor skill and quality of both machine and driver for ‘drama and excitement’. I guess the public that tunes in does get what it deserves though: it’s the short-attention-span/no-substance/twitter mentality on for wheels.

        1. It always amazes me to listen to assclowns like you guys like @dbradock and @jeffreyj.

          Anybody who likes another sport or racing class than what YOU prefer must be stupid and gets what they deserve.

          If you don’t like it, then don’t watch it.

          1. @daved throwing insults is about what I expect from guys like you.
            I actually like and support other racing classes and even like the concept of Formula E – I just believe that its been managed very poorly in terms of making it a proper racing class.
            Crashing and wheel banging is NOT motor sport in any class and designing tracks that make it almost impossible to do otherwise doesn’t help.
            Formula E would be far better (in my opinion and I’m entitled to have one) and a lot better to watch if they designed tracks better so that drivers with the skills that they have could actually race without having the number of crashes and incidents that we see now.
            If you want crashes, stick to gaming consoles.

          2. @dbradock

            Fair enough, and I shouldn’t have included you in that comment. I was really frustrated with Jeffrey but when I was scrolling through I saw your “Mickey Mouse” comment and took it out of context after scrolling back up from what Jeffrey said.

            He was saying the drivers were rejects and the fans too stupid to know they weren’t seeing actual racing. But after re-reading your comments, you were giving an honest assessment of the tracks and @rekibsn made valid points about the strange choices they’re making to stop flat out racing. Both of those issues are fair critiques of choices the FE mgt is making.

            So to you, Sir…I apologize.

            Dave

          3. Apology Accepted @Daved
            Glad we agree – personally I think the series can and will get better. I’m still not a huge fan but I’ll give it time.

          4. “assclown” Really?

            Good day sir.

  6. McLaren wants ‘transparency’ on Renault engine issues (Motorsport)

    “Renault is making a huge effort in order to bring power updates throughout the season so that’s encouraging to see. But of course, [it is] disappointing to have all these penalties and the DNFs in the races.
    “It is important that we have a transparent and open relationship there, and that we analyse the issues and try to solve them together.”

    1. @phylyp Yes a bit of chat on whether Renault are playing dirty with Mclaren to improve Renaults standings in the points.

    2. Thanks @phylyp, good addition to the round-up.

    3. sounds like the same problems Red Bull had…

      1. Certainly reads like they don’t want to say it, but also are telling Renault to be open and transparent to prevent unease poisoning the relation like it did with Red Bull/Torro Rosso @macleod; though it could also be lack of competence, looking at the inconsistent results over the last years, I think. Not really blaming the people working there, I know that for years they had the staff cut (by Briatore in the v8 time, I think), and I doubt they had sufficient investment to make up that deficit, but it remains one of the notable weaknesses of their operation.

        1. but also are telling Renault to be open and transparent to prevent unease poisoning the relation like it did with Red Bull/Torro Rosso

          @bosyber – very mature viewpoint, and given it is the unflappable Seidl saying this, it is likely to be the case.

  7. Well, hopefully, he isn’t going to take as long as Gasly did to get to grips with the car, and based on his first race-outing in the senior team, I’m hopeful, he’s going to finish in the top-six more consistently than the previous user of that car managed.
    The COTD is so spot-on; I couldn’t agree more with its point. I find applauding for a crash a bit questionable in general, but especially now because of what happened in the F2-feature race.

    1. The COTD is so spot-on;

      He has a point, but it’s not localized to dutch fans only.
      Booiing an applauding are of all times i am afraid.
      The problem this weekend is that the behavior is connected to the horrible crash later on. There is no connection between the two.. and people should not make one.
      But the remarks by Steward are spot on.. that’s the real problem.

      “In my view, there have been far too many incidents over the last 24 or 36 months because there has never been a penalty to the extent we saw this weekend.”

      i gives the impression F1 is totally safe and the fans are reacting like that.
      Btw, nobody sheered for the horrible crash later that day. Everyone knew at once that was something quite different.

      1. Oh come on, the horde of people who never watched an F1 race before and suddenly are now “F1 fans” (ie “Max worshipers”) in the Netherlands truly has no equal.

        1. While i certain know a lot of those new ones are riding on the Max Hype there are ones real fans of F1. There were a lot of F1 fans before Max Verstappen came to F1.

        2. Nothing wrong with fans . But as mentioned earlier there is a lot of those “fans” out there. Not localized to one country. I remember the mansellmania in the UK and it was not always fun to listen of watch.
          But you are probably to young for that. Maybe the silverstone crash of Schumacher rings a bell?
          Or italian “fans” on Monza.. etc.etc..
          The problem with this story is the connection between the disaster later that day and the fan behavior with the Lewis crash. They is no relation and you should not make one!

  8. I can imagine cheering some types of incidents, when the leader slips off into the gravel in the wet or under huge pressure from a chasing driver, but not a fast shunt into the wall. The last thing that driver wants to hear when their adrenaline is maxed out from a big crash is people jeering or making fun of their situation, they’re going to take it straight to heart in that state.

  9. Hamilton can moan as much as he wants, but the reason he is being paid big bucks, is the same reason people want “less sanitized” F1.
    The reason is: SPECTACLE

    If he has a problem with people asking for more dangerous, and therefore more thrilling show, he is deeply misunderstanding what kind of business he is in.
    He is driving a car, but the business is spectacle.

    I wish it wasn’t. I know he might as well.

    But if he has a problem with that, he needs to take it up with his team boss (and other big team bosses in general) and F1 management, not with the fans, because fans are not the one calling the shots.
    But he might not like where it would lead, because it would hurt his pocket, A LOT.

    The nature of the fans will depend on the nature of the event, because certain type of events tend to attract certain type of fans.
    And an event that mostly offers spectacle, over a level-playing field focused on good racing, will always attract people looking for a spectacle first and foremost. Not so much level-playing field and good racing.

    1. If he has a problem with people asking for more dangerous, and therefore more thrilling show

      He doesn’t.

      But if he has a problem with that

      He doesn’t

      He has a problem with hooligans who are cheering when someone has quite a heavy crash.

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