Albon "hanging in there" after difficult Imola weekend

Alex Albon has claimed he is "hanging in there" with Red Bull after a difficult weekend at Imola left his future at the team resting on a knife-edge.

Although Albon at least qualified a respectable sixth at Imola, albeit four-tenths of a second adrift of team-mate Max Verstappen, the race proved another troublesome one for the under-pressure 24-year-old.

After losing positions at the start, Albon was afforded a second chance after a late safety car period, only to plunge back down the order again at the restart before a spin of his own making resulted in him finishing last of the 15 classified drivers.

Ahead of the Portimão-Imola double-header, team principal Christian Horner suggested his driver needed to perform at the two races if he was to cement his seat for next season.

While there has been no official confirmation from the team, it is understood Albon has now been afforded the final four grands prix to prove he is worthy of another year.

When asked by Sky Sports F1 if he needed to start making his case to the Red Bull hierarchy behind-the-scenes, Albon responded: "I’m already doing that to be honest. It’s not like I’m not doing it already.

"But of course, I’m hanging in there, I’m doing everything I can. It was in retrospect not a bad weekend for me. But yeah, we’ll focus on to [the next race in] Turkey."

The problem Red Bull has when Albon is off the pace was again illustrated at Imola as Mercedes used its two cars to its advantage in terms of strategy.

When Verstappen pitted to try an undercut, Mercedes was able to immediately react with leader Valtteri Bottas, while Lewis Hamilton was able to extend his stint to cover off the Dutch driver.

"You’re in a strategy sandwich at that point," Horner explained. "So, if you go for the undercut, they can go longer with the tail car. You can’t cover both options so you have to pick the one you want to try and beat.

"We actually picked to try and beat Lewis because we felt that Valtteri on new tyres would also have the pace after a stop. But his pace wasn’t great and he was making a lot of mistakes and that allowed Lewis to close in within a pitstop window.

"They didn’t take it, then they got to traffic, and then the VSC came out and he had a free stop."

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