Albon: Red Bull not setting specific targets for 2020 seat

Alexander Albon says he is not allowing himself to get distracted by thoughts of Red Bull’s opening for the 2020 Formula 1 season with a spare seat up for grabs.

Albon is set to go head-to-head with Toro Rosso driver Pierre Gasly to become Max Verstappen’s teammate at the Milton Keynes squad for next season, having completed a mid-season graduation to the senior team just 12 races into his F1 career as replacement for the underperforming Frenchman.

Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko has revealed the four-time world champion outfit is set to make a final call on its driver line-up for 2020 following next month’s Mexican Grand Prix, but Albon insists he is not feeling any extra pressure.

When asked by Crash.net how Red Bull’s feedback has been on his performances so far, Albon replied: “It’s all been good. Firstly it’s a lot of support.

“They’ve been letting me find my feet and learn from the team. They are very open to me, asking questions and all that kind of thing.

“I know there’s a lot of people thinking there’s a lot of pressure but there really isn’t at the moment. It’s just a lot of learning and that kind of thing, not really focused on next year and all that kind of talk.

“Just focused on this in the present time and trying to maximise results. I know results are what is going to matter at the end of the day.

“In the end, there’s no targets for me right now,” he added. “It’s just doing the races. There’s quite a few races to go [until Mexico], so they haven’t been pushing me in any sense like that.

“Red Bull will know what they see and just because we are taking a lot of penalties they are not going to ignore. From my side it’s still just doing my job.

“They’ll know if it’s a good job or not, they have enough data and globally to see how it’s been doing. I don’t see it as frustrating at all.”

Albon recovered from a back-of-the-grid start to finish fifth on debut at Spa, before following that up with consecutive sixth places in Italy and Singapore. The British-born Thai driver is yet to beat Verstappen outright in equal circumstances but has shown glimpses of his potential to do so.

Speaking about his performances against his seven-time grand-prix winning teammate, Albon said: “If anything Spa and Monza, especially Monza, was closer than Singapore but the track leads it to that. It hasn’t been bad.

“Like anything you want to be improving and it’s getting there for sure. It’s still a work in progress really, but as I said, we are coming back to a track now where it is a little bit more familiar and we will keep on going.

“There are always bits in the weekend where I feel I am getting better in, even in the races, and it’s always like once the weekend is over I know what I could have done better in that situation. It’s good to know and we’ll see.”

Albon stressed there is not one thing in particular that Verstappen is doing that has impressed him the most.

“I wouldn’t say it’s one specific thing,” he explained.

“Clearly he knows the car, he’s confident with the car and he’s quick. It’s not like he’s always quicker than me here or here, it’s normally just bits and pieces everywhere.”