Monaghan: "With a well-balanced car Albon reaches Q3 without effort"
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Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team chief Paul Monaghan says the team has to be 'very honest' and admit that it has to give Alexander Albon a better-balanced car. Albon has been struggling throughout the year in qualifying where he hasn't beaten Max Verstappen and hasn't made it to the last two Q3 sessions.
New engineer
Simon Rennie is back at the pit wall for Red Bull from this weekend to help Albon as race engineer. Rennie already has a lot of experience as an engineer and this should help Albon produce better performances during race weekends.
According to Monaghan, Albon will perform better if he gets a better car. "You often find around here when it gets a little bit windy the car is gonna be a little bit tricky to drive. And I think it's fair to say that if you looked at Friday's pace, then it's a little bit disappointing for Alex as much as anybody to not reach Q3," he says to Motorsport.com.
Balance is the problem
"Certainly he's capable and the car's capable, we've just got to actually sort it out for him to allow him to do it. I think it's just actually working out how to drive this place in terms of you've got sort of a low-speed corner in Sector One and a low-speed corner towards the end of Sector Three, and yet the others demand quite different characteristics in the car", Monaghan continues.
"If we could give Alex a better-balanced car, we all know he'll make it to Q3 without any difficulty. So I think the challenge is more up to us than Alex, to be honest," Monaghan concludes.