Albon qualifies better but goes backwards

Alex Albon finished eighth for Red Bull after starting sixth, a result of several factors combining to make his job harder.

Initially he couldn’t keep his soft tyres alive, which he said meant he had no problem with Red Bull bringing him in well before everyone else on lap 17. But this put him out in traffic on the unfavoured hard tyre, as he only had one set of new mediums available, and he was forced to battle from there.

He lost out to Carlos Sainz Jr twice, the second time when Albon attacked as the Mclaren rejoined from its second stop, and the Red Bull driver was irked at Sainz’s firm Turn 4 defence. Albon stopped again on lap 39, taking on new medium-compound rubber, but didn’t have the pace to overhaul the onestopping Sebastian Vettel.

“I didn’t have any tyres on each stint,”said Albon.“i don’t know what it is, but it’s the opposite of Silverstone.”