Red Bull have been criticised for giving Alex Albon a “dud strategy” during the Spanish Grand Prix.
The Thai driver started sixth but ended up eighth in Barcelona as his race was undone by being not only the first man to pit but also the only one to use the hard compound tyre on Sunday.
Those two decisions left Albon battling in the midfield train rather than challenging the two Racing Points for fourth behind the Mercedes’ and Max Verstappen.
And after the race, he made his frustrations clear.
“I honestly don’t know what to do to manage the tyres better,” he said on the radio during his in-lap. “I literally cannot do anything on entries or exits, it just snaps all the time.
“I don’t know really where to go faster,” he added.
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Commenting later, Red Bull boss Christian Horner was reluctant to blame the strategy, which saw Albon run all three compounds.
“The problem was that Alex didn’t have a good balance in the car,” he said.
“When the balance isn’t quite there on all three compounds of tyres, [it meant] he just went through them incredibly quickly.
“Also running in dirty air for such a large percentage of the race, we just ate the tyres.
“We didn’t have any longevity to our stints, whether it was on the hard, the soft, the medium. It was very frustrating for him.”
Speaking in the BBC’s Chequered Flag podcast, however, ex-Renault driver Jolyon Palmer said the issues Albon faced could have easily been avoided.
“The whole race was baffling for that side of the garage,” he commented.
“Verstappen had a solid effort but Albon is the man under pressure, he started sixth but let’s not kid ourselves he was still three-quarters of a second off Verstappen in qualifying.
“It should have given him a chance to be ahead of the midfield in this race because he started ahead of them, but for the Red Bull strategists, it’s inexplicable what they did, pitting him the first of anyone to go on to the hard tyres which are useless around this circuit.
“The amount of times on Friday that people were saying it’s like driving on ice, there’s no grip, then in comes Albon straight to the awful tyre.
“Then he comes out of the pits right behind Magnussen, Raikkonen and Ocon who were on medium tyres and they’re going to be going for the next 30 laps.
“They’re using Albon like a guinea pig for the team, there’s no way they’re pitting Verstappen on to a hard tyre at that point, it had to be Albon that gets the dud strategy.
“The strategists on that side need to have a think about that because it was poor again for Albon.”
