We here at WTF1 are big fans of Alex Albon – especially after this season on the track, as he carried Williams to a seventh-place finish in the constructors’ championship. He even earned a driver of the year podium spot with us.

But it’s easy to forget it came following a horrible time at Red Bull before joining his current team.

Recently, Alex sat down with former BBC F1 and TNT Sports Anchor Jake Humphrey on his High Performance Podcast, and on it, Alex opened up on his struggles when he got his big break at Red Bull just 12 races into his F1 career.

When asked if he enjoyed being a Red Bull driver, Alex said: “Not at all. No.

“I was struggling I think, I was struggling with the attention around it. I deleted all my socials. It was very toxic, the mocking, the quotes, the becoming a laughing joke, a meme.”

There were struggles off the track, but it’s hard to ignore the on-track ones too. Albon could only manage two podium finishes in a year and a half at Red Bull before being demoted to a reserve, replaced for 2021 by Sergio Perez. And with much made about Red Bull being catered towards world champion Max Verstappen, Albon also gave insight as to why it just isn’t as simple as that.

When asked what it’s like being Verstappen’s team-mate, Albon said: “Truthfully, he has quite a unique driving style, it’s not that easy to get along with. My driving style is a bit more on the smooth side. But I like a car that has a good front end, so quite sharp and quite direct.”

“Max does too, but his level of sharp and direct is a whole different level. I don’t know if you guys play computer games at all but if you bump up the sensitivity completely to the max and you move that mouse and it’s just dancing across the screen everywhere?

“That’s kind of how it feels. It becomes so sharp that it makes you a little bit tense and it just starts to snowball. And every time the car becomes sharper and sharper, you become more tense.

“And you’re having to think about it, and every time you go into a corner, you don’t know how it’s going to react, you don’t have that kind of, well, it’s purely the confidence in the car – the flow, it just, it doesn’t work.”

Fascinating insight from Albon on his time at Red Bull, and the challenges anyone can face if they’re walking in what many think is Max’s house.

Did you think Albon should have been kept by Red Bull?