The 2020 Formula 1 season concluded on Sunday in Abu Dhabi with Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen besting the Mercedes team to take his second win of the season.
All eyes are now on the Austrian team, which is yet to confirm their driver lineup for the 2021 campaign. Verstappen’s father Jos remained coy when questioned about his son’s next teammate.
Alex Albon partnered with Verstappen in 2020 and did not give a good account of himself as he struggled to match the pace set by the Dutchman.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner made it clear that a decision will only be made after the end of the season as the organization was keen to give Albon every opportunity to stake a claim for the seat.
The British-Thai driver failed to leave a lasting impression, and recent reports suggest that Sergio Perez, who was let go by Racing Point, is in line to replace him.
Red Bull has played their cards close to the chest, but they are expected to make an announcement in the coming days.
Jos, an integral member of the Red Bull crew, admitted that he is also in the dark about his son’s next teammate.
“No, I really don’t know. I haven’t heard anything yet. Otherwise, I would have known,” Jos said, as quoted on GP Blog. “Let’s wait and see where he stands in relation to Max and Albon next year. I don’t know how good Perez is.”
Meanwhile, Mercedes suffered a demoralizing defeat at the hands of Red Bull in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. They had no answer to Verstappen’s pace with Valtteri Bottas finishing over 10 seconds behind in second place.
Chief trackside engineer Andrew Shovlin was lost for words in explaining the blunder that they committed during the race’s weekend stretch.
“The surprise came from the fact that on Friday we looked all right,” Shovlin stated via ESPN. “We did our own program on the 2021 tires, and we were keen to focus a fair chunk of our effort on that.
“If we were struggling [for performance] on Friday, then we might have said that we’d spent too much time on those tires, but we weren’t and we were very quick,” he continued. “So to be honest, on Friday night, we were fairly relaxed where we stood and the surprise was on Saturday morning when we hit the track and we were slow.”
