Albon finally "hooked up" with Red Bull despite "tank-slapper" crash

Alex Albon believes he finally has a Red Bull to challenge with this weekend even though he missed half of the second practice session ahead of the British Grand Prix following a heavy crash.

Albon had just posted the second-fastest time of the session when he emerged out of Stowe and lost the rear of his car, careering backwards into a metal barrier and severely damaging the rear wing and left-side of the car.

Although he emerged shaking, he later declared himself "fine, I've had bigger crashes" after a visit to the Silverstone medical centre.

Albon was at least happy with the handling of the RB16 given the difficulties he has encountered so far this season, notably in the last race in Hungary.

"We've definitely made a step as a team," said Albon. "The car feels good. Personally, we expected worse, to be honest, coming into Friday, but the car was hooked up straight away the first time we drove in FP1.

"So it's looking good, obviously. I'm sure the Mercs are hiding something so we'll watch them tomorrow, but otherwise, as a car, it feels well-balanced.

"I say that, I still put it into the wall, but there are a lot of positives to take from today."

As to the cause of the crash itself, Albon added: "We'll have to have a look at it. The rear went quite quickly and I struggled to correct it.

"I thought I had it but I got a bit of a tank slapper as well, so we'll have to look at the data and see."

Team-mate Max Verstappen, who was 17th on the timesheet after FP2 after he was forced to abort his soft-tyre, low-fuel run after encountering a slow Romain Grosjean in his Haas through the high-speed Maggotts-Becketts complex which led to an angry exchange between the two, was also far happier given the recent issues encountered with the car.

Verstappen said: "I just got blocked so I had to stop. In the end that doesn't matter, it was not a bad day for us. I think the car is working a bit better, so happy with that

'There are still things to improve so we'll work on that, but on the long run, it was looking quite decent. Overall a positive day. It looked better and it felt better."

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