Alex Albon feels Daniel Ricciardo’s break from F1 will have purged the demons the Williams driver experienced during his time with Red Bull.
Albon and Ricciardo have been through similar occurrences of being cast aside by a team, spending time on the sidelines before being offered a second opportunity with another marque.
The Thai-British driver has conceded to feeling jaded after being put through what he has described as F1’s “washing machine” and a difficult 2020 with Red Bull at the end of which he was demoted to the role of test and reserve driver for 2021.
During that year, Albon also drove in DTM, which he claims helped him regain his confidence before then joining Williams for 2022.
After being released by McLaren at the end of last year, Ricciardo returned to Red Bull as third driver, and although he has not been involved in any track activity like Albon, he has conducted numerous simulator sessions ahead of replacing Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri.
Asked whether he could relate to Ricciardo’s situation after taking time out and coming back refreshed, Albon said: “Definitely.
“I had a year out, he’s had a little bit less, but I really do think that year helped me.
“When you’re in the circus, things aren’t going well, and you’re just going race to race, you’re not really able to reflect and to understand what’s going on. You just feel like you’re in the washing machine a little bit.
“Having that time, it’s important to be able to reflect and to improve, but it’s also just purely good in the sense where you get time away, and you can fully reset mentally because the reset is very important.
“You start to lose a bit of confidence, and having time away gets rid of the demons in some respects.
“I valued my time in DTM because it was actually driving something a little bit different but it gave me confidence in a different kind of way.
“I was still driving a racing car so you still need to be confident, and driving that car did that.
“So when I came back for winter testing with Williams, straightaway I started more confident than I left.
“Just seeing Daniel and seeing the buzz he has, I think that’s happened to him as well.”
Like many other drivers in the paddock, Albon was left surprised by De Vries’ sacking after just 10 races with AlphaTauri, even though he himself was subject to Red Bull’s ruthlessness.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has revealed that advisor Helmut Marko pulled the trigger on De Vries 11 laps into Ricciardo’s test of the RB19 at Silverstone, two days after the British Grand Prix.
“It definitely happened sooner than I expected, I would say that,” added Albon.
“I haven’t read into it too much but clearly they were very happy with Daniel’s test.
“I know Nyck well, I think he’s a very good driver, and 10 races, it’s still an early moment to do it.
“I would have expected another two [races], at least until the summer break.”
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