Alexander Albon conceded he was not fully satisfied with his performance at the Bahrain Grand Prix despite coming away with his second podium of the season.
Albon inherited third place in the closing laps after Sergio Perez suffered an MGU-K failure, which sprouted a fire at the rear of his Racing Point.
Perez had kept Albon at bay for much of the race and was on course for a consecutive podium finish, having taken second place at the Turkish Grand Prix two weeks ago.
Albon couldn’t match the pace of team-mate Max Verstappen throughout the race, but managed to recover his weekend after a heavy crash during Friday practice.
“I’m not saying I’m not satisfied,” Albon said. “It’s not like 50 per cent, it’s like I’m 95 per cent satisfied. It’s still a good race, just little things, fine tuning.
“I know I was struggling a little bit with tyre degradation through the stint but we were on a similar strategy to Lewis [Hamilton].
“We had two Mediums so it was quite hard to push on the second stint but saying that, yeah, of course I want to be better, I want to be faster and challenging more often for podiums.”
Albon is currently fighting for his drive at Red Bull in 2021, with Team Principal Christian Horner saying his display in Bahrain is “what we’re needing to see” from the Thai-British driver.
“Alex drove a good race today, he benefitted from Perez’s misfortune,” Horner said. “That’s what we’re needing to see from Alex.
“I think his recovery from Friday was strong, obviously after the off he had, he qualified fourth and was there to capitalise on Sergio’s misfortune.
“He’s finished on the podium, it’s our first double podium since Japan in 2017, it’s our first podium in Bahrain since 2013. So I think today has been a good day for Alex.”
Albon currently sits ninth in the Drivers’ Championship, 17 points down on fourth-placed Daniel Ricciardo.
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