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Alex Albon was one of the first victims of Red Bull’s notorious second-seat curse in F1, but one of his closest allies at Williams believes he still stands as Max Verstappen’s best teammate since he was replaced at Milton Keynes.
The F1 rookie class of 2019 is arguably one of the strongest that the sport has seen in recent years.
Lando Norris, George Russell and Alex Albon have all become staples of the F1 grid, with Antonio Giovinazzi going on to find success with Ferrari in the World Endurance Championship following a fairly average stint in the pinnacle of single-seater motorsports.
In Albon’s case, his journey to becoming an F1 mainstay was a bit trickier than that of his classmates.
After being given the nod to replace Pierre Gasly at the Austrian outfit midway through the 2019 campaign, Albon struggled to immediately gel with Red Bull’s F1 car at the time.
While he displayed glimpses of being a genuine talent in F1 machinery, mistakes ended up costing Albon his seat at Red Bull at the end of 2020.
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Alex Albon’s performance coach says he was Max Verstappen’s best-performing teammate at Red Bull
During an appearance on Off the Ball, Albon’s longtime performance coach, Patrick Harding, touched upon the Thai driver’s stint alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull.
The Irishman has been with the Williams star for the entirety of his career and offered an insight into Albon’s rise to partnering with the Dutchman.
He said, “Relative to how drivers have done at Red Bull, Alex is arguably the one who’s performed the best over the last five, six years. He just wasn’t given enough time.
“He moved to Red Bull after 14 races as a rookie. George and Lando, the year before, had done a ton of testing; they had done a lot of FP1s. Alex’s first time in an F1 car at Toro Rosso was the media day before testing. It was the first time he sat in a Formula 1 car. That trajectory was incredible.
“When I think about the mental structures, the emotional structures that he’s got right now, and reflect on where he was as a human being back then, of course, it was going to be a challenge.
“It was a massive step in terms of the expectation of performance and the expectations he had for himself and then the media on the outside.”
Albon previously shared the lengths he went to in order to keep his position as a full-time driver for Red Bull, but it turned out to be in vain.
Sergio Perez was called upon for 2021, and, despite not being overly impressive, kept his seat until the end of 2024.
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Patrick Harding also recalled the ‘beautiful’ thing Alex Albon told him during Red Bull seat uncertainty
Albon learnt a lot from his 18-month stint at the front-running Red Bull outfit around the start of the current decade, about being in F1, and about himself.
Harding also went on to share another moment he shared with the Thai driver, at a point in time in which his future on the grid was all but confirmed.
He added, “We kind of knew that he was probably going to lose his seat, so I asked him, ‘How are you feeling?’ And honestly, he was like, ‘I felt like I left everything on the table.’ And for me, as a performance coach, that’s beautiful.
“I just wanted to hear him say it, but I knew what the answer was going to be. So then I just asked, ‘What are your options?’ Because there was a lot of stuff floating around about Formula E and IndyCar.
“He said, ‘There’s only one option, and that’s Formula 1.’ And that was it. We made that year about him getting a seat back.”
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