Alex Albon may just be saving his Red Bull seat at the last chance after a “very promising” weekend so far in Abu Dhabi.
Though the Thai driver will start fifth, having been pipped by the McLaren of Lando Norris, his gap to teammate Max Verstappen was only a third of a second, quite a bit lower than in recent races.
And though Albon had spent FP3 complaining of chronic understeer, in the cooler dusk temperatures, he was much happier with his Red Bull car.
“If you lay it all down it’s probably one of the best qualifying sessions I’ve had this year,” he said via Motorsport Week.
“It feels like things have been going on the up. This weekend started pretty strong and it’s just been getting better and better.
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“Obviously, we’ve made some changes on the car throughout the year. I think this weekend is the most comfortable I’ve felt in the car which sounds strange obviously been the last race of the year.
“It’s the case and I think I could properly exploit the grip of it.
“In a weird way, it’s also very frustrating because Q3 on run one was good. I just went wide at Turn 1, not wide like you’d think like it would cost me much lap time but these tyres are so sensitive and I basically spun the tyres on the astroturf and from that point on the rears were too hot.
“We’re P5 but it’s weirdly tight this weekend. In a normal weekend that would have been a good one.”
What is pleasing Albon the most though, is he is finally able to extract more pace from the Red Bull, even when it’s not 100% perfect.
“Sometimes you can do a lap and you feel like it’s a good lap in terms of driving but the lap time isn’t there,” he said.
“This weekend it’s felt when I’ve done a good lap we’ve been competitive when I’ve not done a good lap I am a little bit off. We’re still more or less there which has been nice. It’s not obviously something I am normally used to having.
“It’s just been a good weekend working with the engineers and there’s been so much work we’ve been doing behind the scenes with simulator stuff, with meetings to try and get a better feeling for the car and for me to unlock it.
“It just felt like we have been getting better and better with it. It’s not necessarily an easy circuit, there’s lots of different types of corners here so to be able to have a fairly competitive weekend has been very promising.”
Could this be the weekend that gives Red Bull the reason they need to keep Albon for one more year? Well, we’ll have to wait and see.
