Alex Albon has revealed that he used the respective comparison data from his time alongside Max Verstappen versus other drivers to earn a Formula 1 seat at Williams.
The Anglo-Thai driver was promoted from Red Bull’s second-string squad, then known as Toro Rosso, to partner Verstappen having only competed in 12 F1 races at that stage.
After impressing enough to be retained for a full campaign in 2020, Albon struggled immensely with the Red Bull RB16 once the Covid-delayed season finally got underway.
Albon failed to outqualify Verstappen once across the 17 rounds and he was heavily outscored by the Dutchman, now a three-time World Champion, by 214 points to 105.
Red Bull elected to drop Albon at the end of the season for Sergio Perez, leaving him on the sidelines as a reserve driver for the team.
In his endeavour to return to the F1 grid, Albon disclosed that he gathered together a summary of his performance and those who partnered Verstappen on either side of him.
“I kind of did something, I think everyone would do in the same way as me,” Albon said on the High Performance podcast.
“I basically got statistics and research on Pierre Gasly, who I replaced, myself in the team and then Sergio at the time, who is currently in the seat.
“It was very simple statistics, but most of it was relative to Max so speed, qualifying, race, on an Excel sheet.”
Albon divulges that he opted to present that data to several team bosses, which resulted in him earning an F1 reprieve with Williams and rebuilding his damaged reputation.
“But the gap between Max was actually in most cases bigger [with Gasly and Perez] than it was when I was Max’s teammate,” Albon added.
“So he’s [Perez] a replacement to me, but people shouldn’t discredit as much of a bad year as it was. I was still, in reflection, better than the two previous team-mates.
“But I had this statistic and I didn’t really know what to do with it and basically gave it to a couple of team bosses and started it like that.”
Albon contends that his troubles were accentuated by Red Bull being less competitive in 2020 than during Perez’s debut campaign with the side a year later – when Verstappen won the Drivers’ title.
“The problem I had was during the year that I struggled, Max was qualifying third or fourth, sometimes even fifth, and finishing races generally third or fourth,” Albon expanded.
“Then I would be maybe three, four tenths off him in some races which would put me 12th or 11th. They were disastrous.
“The year after the car was first or second almost every race while Lewis [Hamilton] and Max were fighting for the title and Checo was fourth, third or fifth.”
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