Horner defends Albon

Team up with Max Verstappen within the stable Red Bull is not an easy thing. Because direct comparison can be particularly damaging for the rest of your career. 

Pierre Gasly paid the price last year and his successor Alexander albon is in the process of discovering it. While he was in contention for victory at the Austrian Grand Prix, the Thai was never on the pace of the best during the second race held at the Red Bull Ring. 

Albon certainly equaled his best career result with a 4th place but he crossed the line almost 45 seconds behind the winner Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) and behind his teammate, who had nevertheless stopped once again in the hope of setting the best lap in the race. 

« I was asked a lot of questions about Alex's pace at the start of the race last Sunday, says Horner in a debriefing published on the official Red Bull website. Let's not forget that he had just had a great weekend where he was chasing victory before the collision with Lewis (Hamilton). This demonstrates once again how short memories people have in F1.

During his first stint on soft tyres, we were afraid that blisters would appear on the right front so Alex managed his pace to make sure he reached the lap set for his pit stop. Consequently, he showed a certain deficit compared to the leading trio. But as soon as he moved to Medium, he was back in the game. 

If we analyze the lap times, we realize that Alex was in the same tenth as Valtteri Bottas, who was chasing Max. He also did a very good job when it came to resisting the return of Sergio Pérez, whose pace was excellent at the end of the race.

Alex's technical feedback is very good and he works well with Max, allowing us to carry out effective comparisons by trying different things on the car. Alex improves with experience and his feeling behind the wheel is good. We all want him to succeed and let's not forget that he only completed 11 races with the team where Max is entering his 6th season in F1 ». 

Remember that his predecessor Gasly was only allowed 12 races to prove himself in the Red Bull Racing fold before being demoted to Toro Rosso.