“Were you driving around looking for an apartment or a boat to buy?”

Jenson Button is nowadays mainly remembered as a very fast driver with a world title to his name, but he also had a hard time in the beginning of his career. He can therefore empathise with Alexander Albon's difficult period at Red Bull Racing.

No idea what to do

Button started his Formula 1 career with Williams in 2000. "My first year was so simple," he says in an interview with Chris Harris on F1i.com. "The [Williams] car felt great." However, when he joined Benetton in 2001, everything was different. "I was terrible at engineering a car, I had no idea what to do, and no understanding of a racing car at all.”

Lack of confidence

Button also had to deal with a very fast teammate that year. "Giancarlo Fisichella is notoriously good at driving really bad cars, so he blew me away a lot of the time, and mentally that really hurt, I didn’t get it. I really struggled because I just didn’t think I was good enough.”

What's more, with Flavio Briatore he also had a team boss who was very hard on him. "I remember I finished 7th in Monaco which these days wouldn’t be too bad, I was just off the points for top six. And he said, ‘what were you doing, were you driving around looking for an apartment or a boat to buy?’”

Albon

Button thinks Albon's confidence has been shattered in the same way at Red Bull Racing, although he can see that the team is doing its best to support Albon. "I think over the years they’ve been tough, especially with Gasly, I think with Albon they’ve realised they need to take it a bit easier, and maybe work with him with engineering and try to get him up to speed.”

Finally, having Max Verstappen as a team mate doesn't really help Albon's confidence. "He’s got the quickest driver in the world for outright speed as a teammate, who has also set the car up like he wants it.”