Albon finally clinches maiden podium at Mugello

©RedBull

He's come close on multiple occasions since stepping up to the Red Bull Racing team last summer, but Alex Albon finally secured his maiden F1 podium position this weekend in the Tuscan Grand Prix.

He's the first Thai driver to claim a podium in the sport, and he couldn't be happier with achieving his objective.

"It was crazy, it was good. [It took] a while to get here!" he told the media after the end of Sunday's race at Mugello. "I’m really happy, I feel I can breathe. It feels nice to be here.

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"It was a tough one, we had to work for it," he admitted of the physically challenging circuit. "I was expecting it to be worse but we did have two red flags so that did help.

"It’s ruthless, especially the high speed in sector two. You feel it. But otherwise there is more adrenaline going in my body than anything else."

Albon started the race from fourth on the grid, but lost a place at the start to Ferrari's Charles Leclerc. He also suffered in subsequent restarts, but made up for the lost positions with an attacking approach on drivers including Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo.

"We just couldn’t get off the line, so most of the overtakes had to be done on the circuit," he said.

"But our car is good on the brakes, we've know that since day one. So we can do the kind of moves like that and it’s fun to drive."

©RedBull

Albon's Red Bull team mate Max Verstappen only made it to the second corner of the race before retiring.

The car suffered a loss of power , causing it to lose multiple positions. At it went into turn 2 it was then hit from behind by another car, leaving Verstappen beached in the gravel.

"Already on the formation lap the engine stalled," he told Sky Sports F1 afterwards. “Probably the same problem as Monza I guess, because it felt a bit similar.

"I had a good launch and went around Lewis and then it didn’t accelerate so lost a lot of speed," he sighed.

“The contact after doesn’t matter. That’s what happens when you get in a situation like that. I would have probably retired anyway," he acknowledged. “It is what it is.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.