Helmut Marko believes Alex Albon's 2020 season and perhaps his career in F1 could have a taken a quite different turn had Lewis Hamilton not punted out the Red Bull charger in last year's Austrian Grand Prix.
A restart that occurred in the closing stages of the opening round of the 2020 season at the Red Bull Ring saw Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas and Hamilton lead the field.
But on the run up to Turn 4, Albon caught up with Hamilton and attempted to run around the outside of the Briton, only for the Mercedes driver to spin his rival into the gravel and out of contention.
Albon eventually retired from the race with four laps to go while Hamilton was handed a five-second penalty for his ill-fated maneuver which almost mimicked the move that had cost Albon dearly in Brazil at the end of 2019.
©RedBull
But Marko reckons the run-in in Austria impacted the British-Thai's fortunes that day in more ways than one.
"Turn 4 is famous, that's where Hamilton destroyed Albon's career," Marko contended in an interview with Motorsport-Total.
"If Hamilton had not turned in there in 2020, Albon would have won the race!
"Then maybe everything would have been very different, because of course the psyche and self-confidence developed very differently then."
One might argue that Albon's maneuver that fateful day - overtaking a rival on the outside - was not without risk as Sergio Perez demonstrated recently against McLaren's Lando Norris, also at the Red Bull Ring.
Red Bull's motorsport boss insists the onus is on the driver on the inside to leave his rival on the outside enough space.
"They have to race while giving space to the other," said Marko. "That is where Norris made a mistake.
"He saw Perez had passed on the outside and should have given him space, he didn't. But if Perez doesn't try, then we'll have a boring laggard behind us and that's not what we want either."
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