Red Bull bosses reacted with bemusement after Lewis Hamilton appeared to criticise Alex Albon following the Belgian Grand Prix.
The six-time world champion claimed Max Verstappen was trying to fight Mercedes “on his own” as the UK-born Thai driver didn’t have the pace to back up the Dutchman, unlike his own teammate Valtteri Bottas.
And on the whole, Hamilton’s comment is true as Albon has struggled to stay close to Verstappen, as highlighted by the fact he’s yet to out-qualify or finish ahead of him at a race where both have finished.
Even so, Red Bull has continued to support their second driver and team boss Christian Horner quickly noted Lewis’ own history with Alex.
“It’s slightly ironic that Lewis is the guy that’s taken him out of two podium positions!” he told Sky Sports F1 last weekend.
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“Alex is getting stronger, he’s improving,” Horner added. “The car is tricky this year, I think it’s been a little bit trickier than last year.
“But he’s getting to grips with it, and I think his performance on race days, his racecraft, his progress through the field, has always been very very strong.
“If we can give him a better car, as I think we did in Saturday in Spa, then I think he’ll only benefit from that in the remaining races.”
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko was equally confused…
“I don’t quite understand this,” the Austrian told Sky Germany. “Hamilton called us several times last year to tell us to put Albon in the car.
“These statements are not quite comprehensible to me.”
He then confirmed that one reason for the gap between Albon and Verstappen was that Max was getting preference on new parts.
“We started the season with a chassis where the wind tunnel data indicated downforce values that were not achieved in reality,” he explained to Motorsport-Magazin.com.
“Then we tried a lot of experimentation and dedication to get the problem under control. In this short period of time that the races are ticked off, it was not possible to have the same parts for both cars.
“That means Albon did not start with the same equipment in most races. It went so far that we tried different things during practice and he was confronted with different suspension settings.”
