This Formula 1 season has been a busy one. Exploding tires, an imploding calendar and most importantly: a renewed Red Bull Racing straight-up fight against a regulatory Mercedes. And then there’s the silly season that was overwrought this year. Kimi Raikkonen retires, Valtteri Bottas joins Alfa Romeo and George Russell takes his place at Mercedes. Today Williams announced that Russell’s old seat will be occupied by Alex Albon.
That’s right, the same Alex Albon Red Bull had lapping Silverstone to provide tangible evidence that Lewis Hamilton deserved punishment after the infamous British GP crash. Albon will continue to receive support from Red Bull and the car he will drive in 2022 has a Mercedes power unit (and a technical partnership), making it a potential conflict of interest between the two top Formula 1 teams.
In the increasingly terrifying battle for the biggest game between Toto Wolff and Christian Horner, there seemed to be a dispute last weekend about whether Albon could go to Williams. Horner made a really strong hint that he would prefer Williams, not Alfa Romeo (where Giovinazzi’s seat is contested for next year). However, Wolff said Albon could no longer be linked to Red Bull if he were to drive a Mercedes-powered car next year.
Williams not only buys engines from Mercedes, but has a deeper technical partnership that results in extensive sharing of parts including transmissions and “other transferable components”. Williams pays Mercedes for the privilege (or at least got a deal with them) and is not a subsidiary or B-Team of the factory equipment. Nevertheless, there is a lot of Mercedes-own stuff in the Williams. So you can see why Wolff is having a problem there with a Red Bull supported driver and picking up all of this information.
If Albon’s Williams announcement meant he was out of the caffeine giant’s program, that would be fine and all, but oddly, it isn’t. He actually wears an AlphaTauri shirt (Red Bulls fashion brand) and not a Williams team shirt like Nicholas Latifi. Albon even publicly thanked Red Bull for brokering the contract.
“A sincere thank you to Jost and everyone at Williams for entrusting me with this opportunity, and of course Red Bull Racing, especially Christian and Dr. Marko, for making this possible,” Albon tweeted.
Essentially, Red Bull financed a seat with its competitor’s technical partner. It’s either the grossest F1 espionage since Spygate, or just a great way to piss off Mercedes in the turf battle for the last seats in 2022.
Before Albon, the other option for the Williams seat was the works Mercedes Formula E driver and first world champion Nyck de Vries, who is also in the frame for a seat at Alfa Romeo.
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