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Why I think Albon shouldn’t have been in F1 in the first place, and why he doesn’t deserve to now: a thread (more like an essay now).
I’m aware that some other drivers may or may not deserve to be in F1 as well, as ‘deserving’ is subjective but I’m only focusing on Albon for now. Before we start, it’s clear that people on here can’t handle others’ different opinions and will undoubtedly cancel me.
So if you are one of these people, kindly click off and have a nice day. This is not an attack on Albon as a person, but an evaluation of him as a driver.
Let’s start at his junior career. F1 (mostly) has the best of the best in terms of junior careers of its drivers. Firstly, Albon was one of the best in karting. His results show that evidently.
But his move to Formula Renault 2.0 was mostly unsuccessful, proving that racing karts and single seaters is a completely different ballgame. 2012 (failed to score a point) and 2013 were very poor years, with Red Bull dropping him in the process.
2014 was better though, finishing 3rd in the DC. He then progressed to European F3. This was an average year for Albon as he finished behind F1 contemporaries Leclerc, Stroll and Russell to 4th in the rookie drivers championship (7th overall)
He then moved to the GP3 series with ART, with Leclerc as his teammate. ART was clearly the class of the field and he finished runner up in the DC to Leclerc with a 25 point gap. He did beat De Vries, but imo he isn’t F1 worthy either.
F2 with ART was next in 2017. He finished 10th in the DC, 45 points behind his teammate Matsushita (who finished 6th). However, he was injured for 2 races. But this doesn’t excuse that Matsushita won 2 sprint races, both achieved when Albon wasn’t injured or was recovered.
He moved to DAMS for 2018. Here Albon showed the promise he was building up to show, but wasn’t nearly as consistent and mature as Russell. He made several high profile mistakes among the good flashes he showed. He ended up 3rd in the championship.
Okay so we move now onto his Toro Rosso drive. Again he showed promise against a returning Kvyat. However he continued his streak of high profile costly mistakes, most notably at China.
Here are the comparisons of Albon v Kvyat at TR. It was very close between both drivers in quali (the gap at AUT: Russell massively hindered Kvyat’s lap), with victory going to Kvyat. In the average race positions Kvyat finished ahead 7 times compared to Albon’s 5 (of each other)
However in terms of points, it’s a different story. The podium for Kvyat in Germany does disproportionate things but points are points.
It is impressive that he was able to edge out Kvyat at TR, but F1 is about the best drivers. Barely beating Kvyat (who is a solid driver) in average race position should have rung alarm bells for Red Bull against Verstappen.
Yet if we compare the same Kvyat and Gasly: Gasly is basically destroying him right now, although the Monza victory does take things out of proportion. Still, nobody can deny that Gasly is unquestionably outperforming him at the moment.
At RB, he has been getting praise for the overtakes he has pulled off. But he shouldn’t be needing to overtake these cars in the first place. The Red Bull is clearly quick enough to out qualify them and he’s not doing so. Some of the overtakes (such as ones on Grosjean and Kvyat)
are very poor both in judgement and racecraft. Some are impressive but he shouldn’t be needing to do so in the first place, not to mention the pace advantage the car has over the rest.
Let’s analyse his potential podiums. Brazil 2019: was running 6th and got very fortunate due to Bottas’ engine going and both Ferraris crashing into each other. However he left the door wide open into the corner leading to the 1st Hamilton collision.
Austria 2020: due to the high DNF rate, Albon was pretty much guaranteed a podium here. Unfortunately he decided to overtake Lewis at Turn 4 impatiently, leading to another collision. He could have easily overtaken him at another corner (but this ones up for debate).
Mugello 2020: again due to a Verstappen DNF, he was in contention for a podium. A very poor safety car restart dropped him down until the pace advantage of the Red Bull meant he managed to overtake for 3rd.
Another thing to mention, the only reason why Albon got a seat in the first place was because of Ricciardo’s move to Renault (he admitted this himself). Bound for FE and only got in as he was the only driver available that was suitable for seat (being an ex-RB junior helped too).
In conclusion, his junior career is very average at best and his performances at TR and at RB haven’t warranted a race seat in F1 for me.
