Alexander Albon joins the DTM
After being sidelined by Red Bull in F1, the Thai driver will continue to drive for the Austrian brand but in DTM now.
A few weeks ago, it was announced that Alexander Albon would be replaced by Sergio Perez, who had just completed an absolutely excellent 2020 season, capped off with a victory in Sakhir, whereas the Thai driver had failed to confirm the promising performance he had shown in 2019.
In 2021, Albon will combine two roles: reserve driver for Red Bull and driver in DTM. He will race in the German championship when his F1 schedule allows. With Covid-19, the services of reserve drivers have never been in such high demand, and this is not expected to change at least for the beginning of this year.
If we do not yet know in which car the Thai driver will race and the name of his team, we know the name of his teammate, Liam Lawson. The New Zealander raced in F3 in 2019 where he finished the season in 5th place with 3 victories and a campaign in the Toyota Racing Series concluded with 5 victories and a runner-up title. This season in DTM should not prevent him from being promoted to F2 as none of the dates between the two calendars overlap.
Helmut Marko seems convinced that the DTM is an interesting championship for Alexander Albon and Liam Lawson: « The DTM with a high-class field and GT3 sports cars is an interesting platform and a real challenge, both for successful racing drivers like Alex Albon and for our Red Bull junior driver Liam Lawson »
Alexander Albon is not the first Formula 1 driver to move to DTM. In recent years, the GT championship has seen the presence of Pascal Wehrlein, who was replaced at Sauber by Alfa Romeo in 2018, and Robert Kubica, who joined DTM in 2020 after his heroic yet disappointing return to F1 in 2019.
