Albon holds no grudges: “Don’t blame Hamilton for how things turned out”

Alexander Albon returned to the Formula 1 grid this year after being sidelined by Red Bull Racing for the 2021 season. In his period with the Austrian formation, Albon saw a podium place go up in smoke twice due to a failed action by Lewis Hamilton, but Albon does not blame the seven-time world champion.

Albon made his Formula 1 debut with the Toro Rosso team and was then allowed to join Red Bull Racing halfway through the 2019 season. There he replaced Pierre Gasly, who could not live up to expectations. Albon was also directly under pressure in the main force and the question soon arose as to whether he was good enough as a teammate of Max Verstappen. Albon was sidelined after the 2020 season and replaced by Sergio Pérez. A few podium finishes could have changed Albon’s career path quite a bit. Twice, in 2019 and 2020, he saw a place on the honorary scaffold being drilled through his nose due to a wrong action by Hamilton. Albon doesn’t hold a grudge, though.

Albon had to deal with pressure from the start

“If I had achieved better results, it might have resulted in a different mindset”, Albon replies in the Beyond The Gridpodcast on whether the moments with Hamilton affected his chances at Red Bull. “I remember my first or second race in Austria, one of the races where I was killed for my lap times. While I thought: ‘It wasn’t that bad, was it?’ “A result like that (a podium finish) might have calmed things down a bit for the next few races. That criticism was there from the first few races of the season. It was pretty intense.”

Albon doesn’t blame Hamilton

A few more podium places during his stint at Red Bull might have helped, but Albon doesn’t blame Hamilton for taking two away from him. “It (a podium) would have helped, but I would never, ever blame Lewis for how it turned out in the end, it’s all my own fault.” Albon eventually disappeared from the scene at Red Bull and had to spend a year in the shelter. This season he returned to the grid, but with the Williams team.