Red Bull Racing driver Alexander Albon has opened up on the “Twitch quartet” that are supporting each other through the difficult moments in Formula 1.
Earlier this year, when the 2020 F1 season was delayed due to the coronavirus, many drivers began streaming on Twitch to provide entertainment for fans watching at home.
Albon was regularly part of a group consisting of himself, Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Lando Norris, who would race virtually while passing commentary and jokes.
With challenges facing the drivers throughout their early careers in the sport, Albon told the F1 Nation podcast that they have all been supporting each other through the “dauting” F1 world.
“You could call it the Twitch quartet – Charles, George, Lando [and myself],” Albon said. “We’re all close, we all have our own relationships in between the four that we have.
“We have group chats and things like that. We talk about a lot of things. I’m probably closest with George, just because we spent so much time together.
“We all want each other to do well. We are the young generation, we all support each other. Formula 1 is a big world, despite being as prepared as you can be, it’s still, in some respects, quite daunting.
“We’re there for support. They’ve been with me, it’s no secret that the press is hard, media is hard, and they’re always there.
“We talk about everything, I would say that 80% of what we talk about is not to do with racing, it’s rubbish.”
But Albon stressed that their friendships count for nothing once out on track.
“You could almost say that there’s an unwritten rule that when you have your helmet on, there’s no friendship,” Albon said.
“When you see a car, no matter what car it is, you race it like it’s anybody else. There’s no ‘oh, after you’ kind of thing. You’re fighting for position.
“What’s normal about is for us is that we’ve done that since karting, so we could race each other on track and then we’re riding our BMXs around the karting paddock.
“It’s quite a normal thing to race hard on the track and be friendly off it. There’s nothing else to it.”
Last time out at the Tuscan Grand Prix at Mugello, Albon secured his first career podium, crossing the line in third place behind the Mercedes drivers.
