Albon pleased to put “silly mistake” behind him with fourth

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In the round-up: Alexander Albon says he apologised to Red Bull for his crash in second practice.

What they say

Albon bounced back from his crash yesterday and equalled his best qualifying position of the year with fourth on the grid.

Truthfully in terms of the confidence side I was quite happy. It was a silly mistake to begin with yesterday so I knew I could put it behind me pretty quickly and focus on today.

First practice was pretty decent, final practice was pretty decent, so fourth didn’t seem unrealistic. It felt like something which I was thinking was definitely achievable for qualifying. But of course, it was nice to have it.

The car’s been feeling good this weekend, especially since today really it’s kind of clicked a bit more. Obviously fourth is nice, hopefully we can be a thorn in the Mercedes strategy and see what we can do.

On my side it’s just firstly you’ve got to own up to a mistake and it’s more just about putting it behind you really. Obviously you apologise but at the same time you focus on the next day and a lot of the time is spent on – OK, we had the crash – but you don’t really think about that.

You don’t focus on that. You’re thinking about how was the car before then and what areas do we need to work on so we can hit final practice running? That’s kind of the mindset. There’s no point dwelling on it or or regretting or thinking you could have done this and that, because that’s not very helpful.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

@Fer-no65 doesn’t like the Balance of Performance any more than Toto Wolff does:

Balance of Performance means that if one team is doing better than the others, they get penalised somehow so that the field is artificially closer together.

In essence, it’s not a bad idea to have all cars having similar performance, of course, but Balance of Performance, as seen in DTM or Le Mans it’s horrible from a sporting point of view. […]

An engine development freeze makes more sense than some guys deciding BoP after every race. We’ve seen at Le Mans every year teams sandbagging to get benefits and then being faster than the rest come Saturday afternoon.
@Fer-no65

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25 comments on “Albon pleased to put “silly mistake” behind him with fourth”

  1. Latifi is just useless. Why on earth are they keeping him. Shows total lack of ambition for Williams.

    1. I read Latifi went with a race set up and George with a Q set up.
      Keith is gone? I’m sorry to admit how happy I am to hear that, 2020 was one of his better seasons of late that said, Keith is Crofty level 9000.

    2. @viscountviktor He brings money. He seems like a nice chap. That’s about it.

      1. Yeah, he’s a nice guy. He’s one of the drivers I would have a chit-chat with.

  2. Albon is once again flattered by the gap between Red Bull and the midfield. He was 6 tenths behind Max yet lines up beside him. Stroll was nearly the same margin behind Perez in Q2 (with mitigating factors) but lines up 13th v 5th.

    He might be starting on the second row but he is still miles off where he needs to be.

    1. geoffgroom44 (@)
      29th November 2020, 2:11

      Neverthless,it is worth noting that after his crash his ‘comeback’ was a worthy effort. When he is ‘in the zone’ he can deliver some interesting and exciting overtakes,isn’t that why they call him ‘Mr.Outside’. Quali times have been a problem for him, but I notice in Q2 he ended up 1.5 seconds ahead of Max and only 0.053 seconds behind Bottas (all on softs) so he seems to be getting there,huh? I also notice that this chat is remarkably free from the normal anti-Alex brigade, could that be that there was not too much to moan about today?

      1. If you call people being critical about alex’s performance the anti- Alex brigade, I guess the only reason they are silent is that nothing changed. He was embarrassingly far of the pace this weekend, but he is every weekend, so not much to talk about. For me the matter of fact is still: if Red Bull aspires to remain a topteam, they require two drivers that can deliver top performances more or less consistently. Regrettably Alex has proven this season he can only do this every now and than.

      2. @geoffgroom44 no, you seem to have largely invented that nickname – I don’t think anybody calls Albon “Mr Outside” apart from you.

        A single qualifying session doesn’t really undo the fact that, for the vast bulk of the 2020 season, Albon’s performance has been worse than that of Gasly in 2019, and yet Albon isn’t facing any threat of demotion for his performances.

        Albon’s average qualifying position is about the same as that of Gasly in 2019 before his demotion, he has only scored 1 more point than Gasly did over the same length of time before his demotion from Red Bull (64 points to 63) and he is currently lower down in the World Drivers Championship than Gasly was when he was fired (9th versus 6th).

        In terms of average finishing position, Albon is worse than Gasly was – Albon averages 7.6, versus 7.1 for Gasly when driving for Red Bull in 2019. Basically, without that podium in Mugello to drag his points score upwards, Albon wouldn’t even be matching what Gasly was doing in 2019 before his demotion.

        As others have noted, even if he has qualified in 4th, he’s also only ranked 18th in terms of starting lap performance – he loses, on average, 1 place on the opening lap, with Jere noting it’s been 9 races since Albon kept his start position on the opening lap of a race.

        I wouldn’t say that Albon is facing a significantly tougher wider field than Gasly either – it might even be slightly easier with Ferrari dropping back. At best, Albon does not really seem to be any better than the driver he replaced, and at worst I would suggest that he’s actually underperformed relative to what Gasly did in 2019 for Red Bull.

        1. In terms of average finishing position, Albon is worse than Gasly was – Albon averages 7.6, versus 7.1 for Gasly when driving for Red Bull in 2019. Basically, without that podium in Mugello to drag his points score upwards, Albon wouldn’t even be matching what Gasly was doing in 2019 before his demotion.

          Not entirely the correct picture as he should rightly have a podium or even a win in Austria as we remember.

          1. @balue why would Albon “rightly have a podium or even a win in Austria” when he would have retired from the race due to the electronic problems his car developed later in the race?

        2. geoffgroom44 (@)
          29th November 2020, 11:37

          Fascinating.It is always possible, like many old religions, to find something to support your case.Now I wonder why you choose to use Gasly’s 2019 figures and not his 2020 stats.Could it possibly be that Albon is 7 points ahead despite a ‘gifted Italy win’ for Gasly? But I recognise that your point is when they both drove for RB..and therefore I wonder, if the stats are so convincing in favour of Gasly, why he no longer drives for RB. And I would be interested to know…how far behing Max was Gasly in 2019, since that seems to be the benchmark most people choose in judging 2020

          1. @geoffgroom44 the point was to compare both Gasly and Albon when they were in the same environment and a comparable level of experience. I am not comparing between them now because it is obviously a flawed comparison given they are not using the same car or within the same team environment.

            Albon should be ahead of Gasly when Gasly is driving a modified version of Red Bull’s 2019 car – if anything, noting that Albon is only 7 points ahead of Gasly when Gasly is driving a worse car and has had more retirements might actually paint Albon in a worse light.

            As for why Albon is driving for Red Bull, one suggestion put forth by Paul di Resta is that part of it is due to Marko and Gasly not getting on with each other, and thus he’s not keen for Gasly to return to Red Bull.
            Marko himself also made a comment about Albon being “a Thai driver in a team that is half Thai”, referring to the ownership of Red Bull and seemingly hinting that there may be some truth in the suggestion that the Thai co-owners of Red Bull might be placing political pressure on the team to keep Albon.

        3. “A single qualifying session doesn’t really undo the fact that, for the vast bulk of the 2020 season, Albon’s performance has been worse than that of Gasly in 2019…”

          He was still 6 tenths off his pace. So I don’t think we should be talking about this session as good. Especially as Perez (his main rival for the seat) was only a tenth or so back from him. I’m being a bit harsh I’m sure, I like Alex and only RB know what kind of chance he really has to close that gap. But still.

          1. geoffgroom44 (@)
            29th November 2020, 11:43

            fair comment. Albon 7 points ahead of Gasly (despite Gasly’s gifted win), and 2019 Rookie of the Year..so it must be a terrible disastrous….whatever :-)

          2. To balance it out a bit, in response to claims RB should have two good drivers… It does seem a bit of a coincidence that two fantastic young guys both failed by similar margins against Max. And the one that dropped back to the B team immediately started producing stellar results again. Let’s put Pierre and Alex alongside one another at TR, Perez into the RB seat, and get some answers.

  3. I don’t like the idea of BoP either, but at this point I think something has to be done. It’s utterly ridiculous that we all know whose going to win both 2021 championships months before the season even begins

    1. @omarr-pepper But BOP isn’t the right thing to do. There are technical changes coming in 2022 anyway, so not much point in doing unnecessary changes before.

    2. What’s the point of F1 (a constructors championship where the whole point is to develop a better car and then drive it better) with BOP? Why would anyone develop anything, when all the rest would be put to the same level of the worst car on the grid? If you need artificial racing and more action at any cost, watch Fast and furious or whatever is the name. They could change the rules with faster pace to increase the chance of “natural” BOP, but then you have the cost and other problems. In fact, as sad as it is, we should be happy with what we have, because it can only get worse (manufacturers are more likely to leave than enter F1, plus electric car lobby will eventually end the championship as we know it anyway). Add some silly gimmicks that produce random racing with no meritocracy what so ever and that’s it, fans will be leaving too. DRS allows more “overtakes” (drag racing style, no skill involved), yet almost no one want it.

  4. Even though I want Albon to do well, I’m not entirely hopeful he could stay there. The last time he finished an opening lap on at least the same position he started from was the Spanish GP.

    1. Ahah, that’s like vettel lately, 3 good races per season!

      1. geoffgroom44 (@)
        29th November 2020, 11:39

        hahaha, good one :-)

  5. In all honesty, I don’t think Albon deserves that seat next year, but people saying he should be dropped during the season after only a couple races in 2020 made me sympathise with the guy. After all, it’s not like Red Bull would win a championship with another driver. They are gonna finish second anyway.

    1. Replacing him during the season e.g. with the Hulk would have given them a better picture of the alternatives.
      Unless they already made their choice and pick Sergio. In that case they can fulfill the contracts and keep Alex for the rest of 2020.

      1. @paeschli @zomtec
        As I mentioned above. I think the perfect outcome for everybody* is Albon back to TR. Perez in at RB. If Perez fails to close the gap to Max by any significant margin we know that either Max is a superstar, or that RB favour Max with machinery etc (and that that advantage likely can’t be overcome). And both Gasly and Albon get another year to develop in a better environment; still tough, because they’re going to give each other a huge push to compete for the promotion, but out of the spotlight as younger guys should be.

        * Except Kvyat, who, I’m sorry to say I think we’ve seen enough of.

  6. geoffgroom44 (@)
    29th November 2020, 11:41

    Amazing how one can go from Rookie of the Year 2019 to so much ‘abrasion’ in 2020.

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