Alexander Albon, 2021

Williams and Alfa Romeo interested in Albon for 2022 – Horner

2021 Dutch Grand Prix

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Red Bull is looking to place Alexander Albon at an “external team” next year and two have already shown interest in hiring him, according to Christian Horner.

Albon lost his drive with Red Bull at the end of last season. The team’s junior outfit AlphaTauri is expected to continue with Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly next year.

Therefore Red Bull is looking to find a place for him at another team. Horner said Kimi Raikkonen’s retirement and George Russell’s widely expected move to Mercedes may provide an opportunity.

“Alex deserves a seat in Formula 1 next year,” said Horner. “There’s quite a bit of interest in him for next year. We’ll do whatever we can to try and enable that. I hope that nothing prevents him from realising one of those opportunities.

“I think he’s a talented drivers and subject to George moving, now Kimi’s retiring, that does open up opportunities. I’m that will get resolved over the next week or so.”

Red Bull is “looking at external teams”, Horner confirmed, “so Williams and Alfa have both expressed interest.

“We’re keen to see him back racing in Formula 1 and hopefully that will get resolved over the next days.”

Horner did not rule out releasing Albon from his Red Bull contract if an opportunity for him to race in F1 next year arises.

“We want to see him race so we’ll accommodate whatever we can to ensure that he’s back in a race seat next year,” he said. “There’s always obstacles but he’s a lad that deserves an opportunity in Formula 1 next year and we’re doing our best to try and help him achieve that.”

Red Bull may offer a financial package to help secure a place for Albon in F1 next year, Horner confirmed.

“We’re trying to help him get a seat. I think he’s good enough that he doesn’t need to be taking a funding package with him but obviously we’re looking to enable that he gets a drive. So wherever we can help, we certainly will. Hopefully it can be resolved in the near future.”

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2021 Dutch Grand Prix

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17 comments on “Williams and Alfa Romeo interested in Albon for 2022 – Horner”

  1. Yuki just binned it on the first lap after the summer break. I don’t think he’s learned a thing this year, sadly. Wouldn’t be surprised if Albon is in a Toro Rosso within weeks.

    1. Honestly.. I don’t understand why Yuki was so highly rated before he entered F1 anyways. The 2020 F1 grid was among the poorest in terms of quality we’ve seen in a while. Schumacher, Schwartzman and Illot were good, but not great talents. Yuki, honestly wasn’t as good as any of them. None of the 2020 contenders were anywhere as good as recent F2 championship contenders like Leclerc, Norris, Russell, Albon, Gasly, etc.

      What’s been even more disappointing for Yuki is that he’s only moved backwards as the season has gone on. He just doesn’t look like an F1 material driver. He’s lucky there’s Mazepin on the grid this year to act as his shield.. or he’d be getting butchered by fans.

      1. The 2020 F1 grid was among the poorest in terms of quality

        *2020 F2 grid

      2. Failed talents?

    2. if it was up to Redbull he would have been long gone. Honda is backing him up. Albon is much better than Tsunoda, he showed already on his time at Alpha tauri. I think they are just waiting until Honda is gone so that they get him back to AT. Therefore maybe it is important that he is up to speed with other teams until that time comes

      1. @TurboBT He wouldn’t be with RB anymore, though, as he’d be 100% under contract at Williams (the team mentioned in Dieter’s post), not only loan.

        1. ‘on loan’ I should pay more attention.

    3. @David He’ll most likely stay for next season.

  2. I’m surprised they’re going to such great lengths for albon, who’s good enough for f1 but seemed in the lower half of the grid to me, given the same car.

  3. It seems, there are two ways of advancing your F1 career. Hired by Red Bull, or fired by Red Bull..

    Meanwhile Mercedes seems to be learning about this very slowly.

    1. At least they are not being fired while watching GOT episode. They are at least put to other categories or just freed to other teams like renault.

    2. @jureo in the vast majority of those cases, being fired by Red Bull ended any chances of that driver competing in F1 again. If you look at the drivers they have hired and fired over the years, the only two drivers who ever drove in F1 again after being fired were Klein and Liuzzi – and those two examples date from a decade ago.

      In the case of Klein, that amounted to a grand total of 3 races for HRT in 2010, which I think you would struggle to say really “advanced his career” in F1 (he last raced in F1 4 years earlier) – particularly as he only got the seat as Yamamoto apparently had food poisoning in those few races.

      Only Liuzzi had an active career in Formula 1 after leaving Red Bull/Toro Rosso, and even then it was due to events outside of his control. He returned for Force India, but only because Ferrari had hired Fisichella after Massa’s injuries in the 2009 Hungarian GP, and he was Force India’s reserve driver.

  4. I’m pleased they’re doing what they can to help him get back into the sport. He was decent and had a lot of potential but the whole thing came way too fast for someone so inexperienced.

  5. Why this pathetic lower midfield clown deserved so much attention?

    1. Ahah, that’s basically the harsher version of my comment! It’s nice to see horner doing everything to get him back to f1 (releasing him from red bull contract if needed, giving him some money-backing) but I don’t understand why he’s so special.

    2. Found the word, Sergey!

  6. Paige Michael-Shetley
    3rd September 2021, 17:48

    “Red Bull may offer a financial package to help secure a place for Albon in F1 next year, Horner confirmed.”

    Could this be in the form of a discount on some Red Bull Powertrains?

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