Alex Albon admits he was desperate to replace 23-year-old F1 driver on the grid

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Alex Albon has admitted that he was desperate to take Yuki Tsunoda’s seat at AlphaTauri during the 2021 season.

Albon was speaking on the High Performance Podcast about his time outside of Formula 1.

The Thai driver had a whirlwind first two years in F1 within the Red Bull setup.

After a sensational campaign in Formula 2 in 2018, Alex Albon completed the F1 grid in 2019 when he teamed up with Daniil Kvyat at Toro Rosso, replacing Brandon Hartley.

Within 13 races he had already earned a promotion to the senior Red Bull team, replacing an underperforming Pierre Gasly who switched seats with him for the rest of the year.

However, a difficult 2020 campaign saw him lose his place in F1 altogether with Sergio Perez brought in from outside the team to take the vacant seat.

Albon was retained by Red Bull as the team’s reserve driver and undertook other duties within the group.

One of Albon’s duties was to help Japanese youngster Yuki Tsunoda prepare for his Formula 1 debut in the seat he occupied two years beforehand.

However, the Williams driver has now admitted that he held talks with Helmut Marko about usurping the rookie that year to remain in the seat.

Unsurprisingly, the ruthless team director wasn’t having any of it.

Albon was desperate to take Tsunoda’s seat

Speaking about his year out of Formula 1, Albon said: “I was at a race track, I was at every single race that year supporting the guys, helping Checo [Perez] get comfortable with the car.

“I was driver coaching Yuki Tsunoda another one of the junior drivers, well the one in AlphaTauri at the time helping him get up to speed.

“And it was this weird thing because for example with Yuki, I wanted to take his seat! He was a potential candidate that I could replace.

“I remember having that chat with Helmut Marko who told me at the time, you need to driver coach this guy and I was like, I’m not going to, that’s a potential seat.

“He said no, he’s already signed, he’s guaranteed. So, I was like fine, then I’ll help him.

“But it was a very weird dynamic because I was having to be selfless and it didn’t really agree with me that much.

“I was doing my job and it worked out that it was the right thing to do in the end.”

Tsunoda will be glad Marko guaranteed his seat despite the pressure from Albon and they’ve both gone on to have successful careers in Formula 1.

The 23-year-old is going from strength to strength right now and earned plenty of plaudits for his performance in Abu Dhabi last weekend.

Next year will be Tsunoda’s fourth with AlphaTauri – or whatever they’re rebranded as – and may be considering his next steps.

The outfit are unlikely to ever be consistently challenging for podiums and although Tsunoda has time on his side, the queue of talented youngster looking to enter F1 is growing annually.

He may need to make his move sooner rather than later to avoid missing out at a top team.