Alex Albon recently revealed what makes Max Verstappen so dominant at Red Bull over whoever is alongside him, with it all coming down to his “unique driving style”.
Since Verstappen joined Red Bull at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, he’s gone onto destroy and frustrate every teammate he’s ever had.
The first to crumble alongside Verstappen was Daniel Ricciardo, who opted to jump ship to Renault at the end of 2018.
Pierre Gasly was the next driver to buckle under the pressure of being alongside the three-time World Champion, with the Frenchman having been dropped by the Austrians after just six months.
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Albon was chosen to replace Gasly and was promoted from the sister team as a result.
Whilst Albon did perform better alongside Verstappen than Gasly did, the Williams driver still found himself out of the team after 18 months.
Sergio Perez replaced Albon for 2021, with the Mexican still in the seat today.
It’s very rare for so many high-level drivers to struggle so much in the same team, something which some have accused of being because Red Bull design their cars to suit Verstappen.
Albon has quashed these suggestions and has noted that Verstappen’s dominance is more because of how he has his car set-up, with his driving style taking how a car feels to a “whole different level”.
It’s well documented that the Dutch driver likes his car to have a sharp front-end; however, Albon admits that it’s like nothing he’s ever felt before.
“The first thing is a lot of people say that car is built around him. Truthfully… the car is what it is,” Albon told the High Performance Podcast.
“He has quite a unique driving style actually. It’s not that easy to get along with. My driving style is a bit more on the smooth side, but I like a car that has a good front end, so quite sharp, [and] quite direct. Max does too, but his level of sharp and direct is kind of another… it’s a whole different level.
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“I don’t know if you guys play computer games at all, but if you bump up the sensitivity completely to the max and you move that mouse and it’s just darting across the screen everywhere… that’s kind of how it feels.
“It becomes so sharp that it makes you a little bit tense and it just starts to snowball and every time the car becomes sharper and sharper you start to become more tense.
“And I think it’s like any sport, if you start to not be in that flow state and you’re having to really think about it, and every time you go into a corner you don’t know how it’s going to react, you don’t have that kind of… well it’s purely the confidence in the car, the flow, it doesn’t work.”