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Marko explains in detail why Albon is no longer the teammate of Verstappen

27 December 2020 at 08:49
Last update 27 December 2020 at 11:03
  • GPblog.com

Alexander Albon has had to make way for Sergio Perez at Red Bull Racing. The 24 year old will become their reserve and test driver next season. Helmut Marko has been explaining why they took the decision to replace him.

"Of course, all the reports and the unsatisfactory results disturbed him. The gap Verstappen has increased, not decreased, over the course of the season. It's marginal, but it's increased," Red Bull's advisor said as quoted by Motorsport-Total.com.

The RB16 was a car that was difficult to drive and minor changes had an immediate impact on the whole operation of the car. Albon never got the hang of it, because when the wind picked up or went down, the British Thai had problems, according to Marko: "Then he lost a disproportionate amount of time."

At the same time, the 77-year old man from Graz realises very well that the bar with Max Verstappen as a teammate is very high. "If you look at it this way, apart from Ricciardo no one has performed at the same level as Max. And the longer the Ricciardo-Max combination had lasted, the more often and more clearly Max would have been in front of it."