Red Bull claim Alex Albon’s issues with his Red Bull were “accentuated” on the Sochi circuit after a lowly P10 on Sunday.
The Thai driver’s race was already compromised before the start as a five-place grid penalty for a new gearbox meant he started 15th.
Then a decision to pit under the Safety Car at the end of Lap 1 also backfired as he struggled to make his way back through the field.
“It was not an easy race. I struggled to get through on the hard tyres and then on the mediums, we did as much as we could, but just difficult out there today,” Albon said via RaceFans.
“We were just in traffic the whole time, we couldn’t really get any clean air and put some proper laps in.”
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Albon was able to make a charge of sorts to claim the final point, and Red Bull boss Christian Horner was disappointed he couldn’t build on his result at Mugello.
“Alex is particularly sensitive to some of the characteristics of the car, he’s struggling with that, and they are accentuated at this type of circuit with short corners and big braking zones,” he explained.
“Obviously there’s plenty to look at for him. His second half of the race, he recovered reasonably well but it’s been a tough weekend for him.
“So it’s a shame after the podium two weeks ago that this one has probably been one of the hardest of the year for him.”
In contrast, teammate Max Verstappen split the Mercedes in both qualifying and the race, to give Red Bull their first-ever Sochi podium.
“Absolutely, Mercedes had a faster car than us this weekend,” Horner said when asked if that was the maximum result possible for Red Bull.
“Obviously we benefited from Lewis’ penalty, but I think Max has just extracted every ounce of performance out of the car throughout the weekend. Our best result here in the six years we’ve been coming, so pleased with the drive from Max today.
“I think this circuit was always going to be difficult for us. We had quite a lot of clipping here and that always has an effect so I think it was skewed by that energy recovery. But we knew that before we got here, so it was always going to be a more challenging race for us.”
