Lewis Hamilton went wheel-to-wheel with one of his old Formula 1 rivals again recently, one whose career the seven-time champion had a significant impact several years ago
Approaching 20 years in Formula 1, Lewis Hamilton has seen a lot of drivers come and go – and beaten most of them. But he had a notable impact on the career of one racer in particular, who lost his place on the grid seemingly as a result of two run-ins they had with the seven-time champion.
The most high-profile of those incidents happened back in 2020, the shortened season that was cobbled together at short notice after the Covid-19 outbreak scuppered F1’s original season plans. A 17-race schedules was hurriedly arranged, including multiple races at some venues.
It was a difficult situation for everyone, not least those drivers who were still finding their feet on the grid. One of those was Alex Albon, in his first full season driving for Red Bull having been promoted from the junior team Toro Rosso after just a few months in the sport.
He had replaced Pierre Gasly who had also been promoted very early in his career but buckled under the weight of expectation. Albon dealt with that aspect a little better and was retained for the 2020 season after settling in as team-mate to Max Verstappen in the latter half of the previous campaign.
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It was late in that 2019 season that the British-Thai racer had his first run-in with Hamilton. Driving for Mercedes at the time, he had already secured his sixth F1 crown by that year’s Brazilian Grand Prix but was apologetic after spinning Albon around when he was in podium contention, dropping him to 14th place.
“I massively apologise to Albon, I went for a move, the gap was there but obviously it closed at the end,” said Hamilton after that collision. But it happened again in Austria the following year, when Albon was again on for his first F1 podium and could have won the race, before contact with Hamilton who said afterwards: “I can’t believe we came together again.”
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Albon lost his place with Red Bull at the end of that year and ended up falling off the F1 grid entirely. After a year out, he was given a lifeline by Williams and not only has he settled back onto the grid well, but this season he is leading the charge of a team which is enjoying its best season in years.
He added eight more points to his season tally last time out at the Belgian Grand Prix with an impressive sixth-placed finish. It was during that race that he duelled again on track with Hamilton, this time in his red Ferrari, and thankfully they managed to keep it clean this time.
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But for Martin Brundle in commentary, it was reminiscent of those infamous collisions from years ago which played a part in setting Albon’s F1 career back by years. “[A] bit of history between these two isn’t there?” he said on the live Sky Sports broadcast. “When Alex was a Red Bull driver, Lewis basically took him out didn’t he? In Austria and Brazil. It kind of almost cost, I think it almost cost Albon that drive in the end, for not getting the results.”
Albon signed a multi-year contract extension last May, committing his immediate future to Williams amid interest from some of the top teams. In particular Red Bull were considering a move to bring their former racer back into the fold before making the disastrous decision to hand Sergio Perez a new deal before axing him at the end of the season anyway.
