Albon gets Ricciardo's old engineer Rennie in Red Bull technical reshuffle
Red Bull has shuffled its Formula 1 technical team, with the experienced Simon Rennie returning to trackside action from this weekend's British Grand Prix as Alex Albon's new race engineer
Rennie is best known for working with Mark Webber in his final 2013 campaign and with Daniel Ricciardo between 2014 and 2018 as the Australian developed into a race winner.
He elected to take a factory role after that, and his desire to step back played a part in Ricciardo's decision to leave the team at the end of that year and join Renault.
Following Albon's challenging start to the 2020 season, which included failing to make Q3 for the Hungarian Grand Prix, Red Bull has elected to bring Rennie back into its trackside set-up to assist the second-year Thai driver.
Albon's previous race engineer, Mike Lugg, will remain with Red Bull but take a factory role from now on.
Red Bull has been seeking answers as to why its tricky RB16 has not delivered the performance hoped it could, with an aerodynamic "anomaly" having come to light over the opening three races.
Albon has faith that the team can get on top of things and is upbeat about its prospects for the British Grand Prix, the first of two consecutive races at Silverstone with the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix following on the weekend of 8-9 August.
"Obviously as a team it hasn't been an ideal start to the season but aside from the DNF, we've been able to score some good points," said Albon, referring to his late exit from the season opening Austrian Grand Prix with a power unit failure.
"I think with that being said, the car can only improve so I'm feeling positive.
"We know the areas we need to work on and with Silverstone being a home race close to the factory, that's good news.
"I think we can hopefully get a good result there.
"Historically it's been a pretty good track for the team, and it's one I really enjoy driving."
Albon tested the RB16 at Silverstone in pre-season as Red Bull used one of its filming day allocation to get its staff up to speed after lockdown, but was limited to 100km on show tyres.
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About this article
| Series | Formula 1 |
| Drivers | Daniel Ricciardo , Alex Albon |
| Teams | Red Bull Racing |
| Author | Jonathan Noble |
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