Ahead of the weekend it was announced that Red Bull would be shuffling its trackside engineering staff around and bringing Simon Rennie back to engineer Alex Albon. But the way Albon’s former engineer Mike Lugg has been treated seems a bit harsh. If the public reason for the change was to give Albon a more experienced hand, wouldn’t Lugg have benefitted from being kept on? What’s your take on the situation?
Jeremy King, via email
I think Red Bull handled it very badly. I don’t know whether he put someone’s nose out of joint, but to take him off the job and stick him in the factory seems totally unfair. Why not keep the guy on and learn a bit from Simon?
Christian Horner said that it was “unfair” on Lugg “to have that pressure” of dealing with a difficult car and, while I know Simon very well and he’s definitely the right guy to put in there, I really feel for the guy being stood down like that, so publicly as well.
It was fairly obvious on the radio conversations from Hungary that Albon was annoyed at being put back out in traffic in Q2, but that’s down to the strategist. It’s not primarily the engineer’s fault, that’s why they have someone working strategy out.