Alex Albon said he had flashbacks of his collisions with Lewis Hamilton while making the decisive move on Daniel Ricciardo which earned him a maiden F1 podium finish.
Albon finished third at the Tuscan Grand Prix, passing Ricciardo around the outside of Turn 1 several laps after the second race restart. The Thai driver has had two near-misses since joining Red Bull, colliding with Lewis Hamilton at last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix and this year’s Austrian Grand Prix when it looked like a podium or a win was on the cards.
It was third time lucky for Albon, although he admitted feeling nervous as he sized Ricciardo up for the move.
“I had the Lewis flashbacks going into the corner, but Daniel left enough space and it was all OK.” Albon told Sky Sports after the race.
Albon drove it home cleanly to secure the result, although Ricciardo had hoped the Red Bull driver would make a mistake under the pressure of the situation and hand third place back to him.
“I knew if I could hold on to him for a few laps maybe it would hurt his tyres,” Ricciardo said. “I knew because he disposed me pretty quickly I thought, alright, that’s probably done.
“But also in the back of my mind I was like, OK, the kid’s never been on the podium before, if I try to do anything to put pressure on him and force him to keep driving at a high pace maybe something could happen. I saw a few times he put a wheel a little bit on the gravel out of Turn 5 so thought maybe he was over-driving or getting nervous but like the first five laps [after getting past] he had too much pace for me to do anything.”
Albon has been under pressure this year, a situation not helped by Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly’s stunning win at the Italian Grand Prix last weekend. Albon replaced Gasly at Red Bull last year.