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Ted Kravitz critical of Red Bull's decision to promote Alexander Albon

Ted Kravitz critical of Red Bull's decision to promote Alexander Albon

16-08-2019 10:30
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Bobby Vincent

With Alexander Albon replacing Pierre Gasly at Red Bull for the next race in Belgium, Sky Sports pundit Ted Kravitz is firmly against the decision made by Helmut Marko and his staff.

With Albon still in his rookie Formula 1 season, many people believe the promotion for the British-born Thai driver is too soon and Red Bull may be making the same mistake that they made with Gasly.

Gasly was completely outperformed by his team-mate Max Verstappen, who has won two out of the last four races, putting the Frenchman under immense pressure, and with Albon still not familiar with all of the tracks on the F1 calendar, Kravitz believes a similar thing could happen to the new Red Bull man.

"Albon has publicly said in his first year of Formula 1 he was only getting around to learning who everyone is, what everyone did at Toro Rosso, and how to get the best out of his situation there," Kravitz said to Sky Sports F1.

"He'll have Spa, Monza, Sochi and Abu Dhabi as four of the remaining nine tracks that he knows and while you could argue he didn't know China and still managed to score points there after crashing and not taking part in qualifying, that was in a team where there is less pressure and where he already knew the environment.

"He's going to be going to some tracks he doesn't know, with an engineer he doesn't know, with mechanics he doesn't know, driving a car he doesn't know, and he is expected to be better than Gasly, who knows all those tracks."