Albon to replace Gasly at Red Bull

[The Black Knight]

Yea, if the point of making the change was to take the fight to Ferrari, on paper, Kyvat would have made more sense. He has more points in the Torro Rosso and has put the car on the podium. I think Albon is being burnt.

I think pride has a lot to do with it. The replacement of Kvyat in 2016 was lunacy promoting Max at that time. Kvyat, while not out qualifying Danny regularly, was just after a podium and leading Ricciardo in the points. Imagine if Kvyat were to go to RBR, I can imagine him being massively motivated to beat Max. If he was even within 2/3 tenths of a second of Max after a race or two, it’d make Helmut Marko look stupider than he has always looked in general.

So really, to fight Ferrari Kvyat would have been the perfect choice but boy would their faces have been red were Kvyat to beat him and, to be frank, with the right teammate I think Max is a very beatable driver. The switch was about saving face and evaluating Albon for next year. I don’t think they truly genuiney care about the Ferrari fight.