When Red Bull took the difficult decision to drop Alexander Albon from their senior team at the end of 2020 in favour of veteran Sergio Perez, they worked hard to ensure that they found him a race seat where he could return to Formula 1 for 2022.
With George Russell departing Williams to fulfil his destiny at Mercedes, Red Bull offered Albon’s services to the team. A young driver who had shown genuine potential with multiple seasons of experience with a race-winning team, Albon was an ideal candidate to replace Russell and help lead the lowly Williams into a new era alongside Nicholas Latifi.
By the end of the season, Albon had secured himself a multi-year contract extension after winning the respect and trust of his brand new team. But while he had put in some of the most memorable and impressive performances of any driver in the lower half of the field throughout the year, he also showed that he is far from the finished article in the cockpit.
Albon returned to Formula 1 with such a professional performance in Bahrain, it was as if he hadn’t spent a year away at all. He took the unremarkable Williams into Q2 at the first attempt, before finishing a respectable 13th. But the reality of racing for Williams hit harder in Jeddah, when he ran towards the back of the field in his uncompetitive car and then punted Lance Stroll in the closing laps, being handed a three-place grip drop for Melbourne despite protesting his innocence.
During his 2020 season at Red Bull, Albon faced valid criticism for his inability to overcome adversity and showing a lack of fight on track. But Melbourne proved that he was now a different, better driver. Starting from the very back of the field on hard tyres, he executed arguably the most ambitious strategy of the entire season, running all 57 laps of the race he was allowed on his initial set of tyres before pitting on the final lap, emerging just metres ahead of Zhou Guanyu and taking an outstanding tenth place finish to secure Williams’ first point of the season.
He followed this exceptional drive with another fine performance in Imola. After his brakes exploded in Friday qualifying, he lined up 18th on the grand prix grid. Running behind Pierre Gasly for the first part of the race before overtaking him without DRS, Albon moved up to as high as 12th in the latter part of the race, gaining a bonus position when Esteban Ocon’s post-race penalty was applied, to be…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at RaceFans…