Albon explains reasons for engineer change for F1 British GP

Alexander Albon says Red Bull’s decision to bring in Simon Rennie as his Formula 1 race engineer for this weekend’s British Grand Prix is down to the ‘experience’ he has.

Ahead of this weekend, Red Bull announced Rennie’s return to a trackside role for the team. Rennie joined Red Bull in 2013 from Renault and worked as a race engineer for Mark Webber and Daniel Ricciardo until 2018, before stepping back into a factory role.

When asked about Rennie's appointment, Albon said: “Well firstly there are no issues with Mike, my previous engineer. Obviously right now the car is tricky to drive right now and the team’s choice was that we need some experience and Simon brings that.

“He’s been in Formula 1 for a very long time now and with that being said obviously he understands F1 and he will hopefully point us in the right direction.

“I’ve already worked with Simon beforehand. We’ve done a test in Barcelona last year. Also Simon’s in charge of a lot of the sim duties that we do back at Milton Keynes so I see him a fair bit.’’

Albon has been unable to match the supreme pace of team-mate Max Verstappen in the early part of the season.

Despite his lack of performance relative to his team-mate, Albon is happy with his performances.

“Firstly I would say I am pretty happy I think. Obviously the first race was there to fight for a victory. The two after were a P4 and P5 so I don’t think it’s been bad at all. Of course there are some qualifying and race pace where there’s a little bit of time there but actually to be honest I am pretty happy with it.

“Obviously the car is not easy and with that - it must be a little bit of a lack of experience to drive around it. The first few races, I am quite happy.’’