How Albon kept his Red Bull F1 drive

Unusually for a press release, Red Bull's announcement on Tuesday morning that Alex Albon will continue as Max Verstappen's team-mate in 2020 hit the nail on the head. Team principal Christian Horner's quote included the phrase "tenacious, fiercely committed racer" to describe the 23-year-old.

Both of these qualities have been on display over the past year or so.

Remember, Albon is a driver who, 14 months ago, appeared to be on the Formula 1 scrapheap before he even had the chance to test a car and had signed up to drive for the Nissan e.dams squad in Formula E. What has happened to him since is a reminder of the role luck can play - and the need for any driver to be ready to capitalise on it.

Albon has not been fortunate in the sense that he's somehow fluked his way not only into F1, but into a top seat. However, a confluence of factors conspired to give him an opportunity he has capitalised on brilliantly.

Albon wouldn't be here had Red Bull's driver cupboard not been bare, had Daniel Ricciardo not defected to Renault, had Brendon Hartley aced his big F1 chance, had Pierre Gasly not lost the plot in the first half of the season.

But all of these did happen and Albon did his bit.

It's what you might call the 'cometh the hour, cometh the man' moment that some drivers face.

The classic example in F1 was Kamui Kobayashi, who had two outings in place of the injured Timo Glock at the end of 2009 - at a point where his European single-seater career was grinding to a halt.

He excelled in those outings, earned a Sauber seat for the following year and converted that unlikely shot into a four-season grand prix racing career. Today, he's a top gun for Toyota in the World Endurance Championship.

Albon's shot was different, but shows similar qualities.

Opportunity can be a strange thing. For the ordained megastars, there's a sense of inevitability and one step follows another. But for many very good drivers it's about such sliding-doors moments.

Unlike Gasly in the first half of the year, Albon avoids getting mired among midfielders even when he has found himself behind them

Many get opportunities and don't grasp them, but Albon has done so. For a driver whose junior career started out disappointingly that might seem like a surprise, but for some drivers it's not a straight line to the top.

By his own admission, Albon's career lost a little momentum when he graduated to single-seaters as a karting megastar. It wasn't really until he reached GP3 (now FIA Formula 3) in 2016, when he ran ART Grand Prix team-mate Charles Leclerc close for the title, that he started to make good on that promise.

But after an up-and-down first Formula 2 season the following year, he had a strong run to third in 2018 up against George Russell and Lando Norris. That helped ensure he was in the right place at the right time for a Red Bull recall after it had previously dropped him.

His tenacity showed immediately.

Albon responded well to a potentially confidence-denting shunt in FP1 in Melbourne, then climbed from a pitlane start after a big impact in FP3 in China to finish 10th. This set the pattern for the season; too many accidents, but some impressive recoveries and battling race drives.

Arguably, his best race performance was before he even got into the Red Bull - with a sixth place at Hockenheim.

There, after a well-timed early stop, he was near the sharp end throughout despite never having driven an F1 car in anger in the wet before the first lap of the race. But those with less to lose gambled strategically and got ahead late-on. Daniil Kvyat's emotional and well-deserved podium grabbed the headlines, but Albon was Toro Rosso's real star that day.

Since moving to Red Bull, he has permanently resided in the bottom half of the top six in terms of race results and has actually outscored Max Verstappen 68-54 so far. That comparison does not reflect Albon doing a better job than Verstappen because he clearly isn't, but he is doing exactly what Red Bull needs him to do.

Unlike Gasly in the first half of the year, Albon avoids getting mired among midfielders even when he has found himself behind them.

There have been a few slices of luck - the timing of the safety car at Sochi and getting away with thumping into Norris at Suzuka - but Albon is the kind of driver who ensures he's there to capitalise on any good fortune.

He's also impressed the team with his attitude technically, which is an area where Gasly caused frustration with his endless, often fruitless, set-up tinkering and struggles to adapt to the demands of the car. Albon has been easier to deal with and the fact that he's delivering good, solid points week-in, week-out made continuing with Red Bull inevitable.

Albon's adaptability behind the wheel is to his credit. In the Toro Rosso, he adopted a relatively aggressive approach, which seemed to get the best out of the car. This is a little at odds with his default style, which is the classic 'stable rear, carry the speed in, keep the minimum speed up and smoothness focus'.

Gasly, by comparison, got on with the aggressive approach of the Toro Rosso last year but couldn't dial it back in the Red Bull. Often, he was just trying too hard. The adaptability Albon has showed is a significant strength and should allow him to get the best out of what he has at hand.

Albon's tenacity gives confidence that he will make progress

There is still huge room for improvement, as you'd expect for a driver who hasn't even finished his first full season in F1, and who is up against a great in the making in Verstappen.

The crashes need to be cut back on because even after his move to Red Bull he's found the wall too often. While it's to his credit that he bounced back from a costly shunt in Mexico to qualify and race well, it won't be long before he can no longer play the impressive recovery card.

He also needs to close the gap to Verstappen because, while he is closer than Gasly, the gap is too big to be sustained indefinitely.

On this point, using an adjusted average to ensure the comparison is most representative. Gasly was 0.529 seconds down on Verstappen over the first half of the year, whereas Albon's deficit is 0.407s - the highlight being setting the same time as his team-mate to the thousandth on his first visit to Suzuka.

That gap is perfectly acceptable in the circumstances, but Red Bull will be looking for the deficit to reduce over the course of next season. It doesn't need Albon to be outqualifying Verstappen or even going toe-to-toe with him every Saturday afternoon, but he needs to be there with him, especially if Red Bull is consistently in among the Mercedes and Ferrari drivers.

All of this makes the decision to keep Albon on and leave the two Red Bull A-team rejects - Kvyat and Gasly - at Toro Rosso for next year an obvious one.

All three drivers are doing some of their best work where they are, and Gasly deserves particular praise for the quality of his performances since being demoted, putting Red Bull's F1 driver arrangements in good order for now. And they need to be, given the next cab off the rank - currently Juri Vips - isn't yet ready.

Albon's tenacity gives confidence that he will make progress.

Above all, what Albon has done is look absolutely at home in F1 even when things were going wrong. That intangible quality is the result of a combination of factors, based on his physical skill and mental fortitude. It's this that has convinced Red Bull there really is more to come.

The question is, though, 'how much?'. Albon has already proved himself to be a very capable grand prix driver. Next season, at minimum, he will be expected to be strong backup for Verstappen and he should fulfill that role well. As Valtteri Bottas has proved at Mercedes, it's not an easy task, but Albon should be up to it.

Halving the qualifying gap to Verstappen would be a good target.

Right now, it would be a stretch to say Albon is sure-fire future F1 world champion material, but at the very least he can become a very effective number two in a top team. And with his capacity to keep chipping away, keep improving, and having the mental strength needed to thrive under intense pressure, he could yet show the potential to reach beyond that.

Red Bull asked a massive question of Albon by throwing him into its frontline team just half a season into his F1 career.

But he has risen to the task. It was high-risk, but as Red Bull has proved over the years it is looking for the best, and favours proving its drivers in the heat of battle. For many, shortcuts like this backfire, but for those capable of magic in sport, they usually rise to the occasion rather than being found out.

The priority for Albon now is what might be termed the 'difficult second album'.

Everything this year has probably felt like a bonus to a driver who not so long ago had to come to terms with his F1 dream being over. He's passed the first test with distinction. But every step of the way in a sporting career the questions asked are tougher and more fall by the wayside.

Next season, with sky-high expectations and intense scrutiny, Albon will face an even more difficult challenge. It's one he appears to be up to.