Alex Albon went through a very negative phase with the relegation of Red Bull, moving to simulator and reserve driver, to leave his place vacant to Sergio Pérez. Albon spoke about what he felt at the time and the fundamental work he did as a simulator driver for the team.
Albon admitted that the blow of finding himself with no place to compete in 2021 was tremendous:
“It killed me. It killed me, it was terrible,” Albon said, describing what he felt when Red Bull demoted him. “It was one of those things – it was announced that I wasn’t going to be a driver too late, I think it was December. They still believed in me and they still trusted me, Christian [Horner] and Helmut [Marko], all at Red Bull, and I still have a great relationship with them,” he admitted. “But from my side, it was more or less like, ‘I want to be in F1. I feel like I’m the most eager driver I know, how can I be back?”.
The year away was not ideal, but Albon took a constructive approach and tried to understand the strengths of the two “holders” last season, as well as having played a key role in last year’s title fight:
“What was also important for me was listening to Max [Verstappen] and the czech [Sergio Perez],” he pointed out. “I always listened to your engineers… and I took notes. As people, their personalities – how they interacted with the team and how they learned. It was quite interesting to take that step back from the spotlight and the paddock in that way, and look at things from a different perspective,” he admitted.
The RB16B was fast from the start,” reflected Albon. “Max talked about how much better the rear was, how much more stable it was. It hurt a little bit, but at the same time, it was great, I felt like I contributed to it.’ People like Adrian [Newey] I got a lot of credit for that. I don’t want to say it helped much, but I felt like I did. The first few races… it was terrible, I was a reserve rider so I had to go to every race, but just being there, I couldn’t see, I was just sitting and trying to keep as far away as possible”.
