Red Bull's Alex Albon believes there will be a lot of tyre degradation for drivers to deal with at this weekend's Qatar Grand Prix. Qatar's Losail International Circuit is the first of three new venues or track layouts to conclude the 2021 Formula 1 season. Red Bull lost out to Mercedes last weekend in Brazil when Lewis Hamilton stormed through the field to win, having started 20th in Sprint Qualifying. Hamilton's victory has trimmed Max Verstappen's lead in the Drivers' Championship to 14 points with three races remaining. "We don't like following in F1 cars at high speed," Albon said on the F1 Nation podcast. "The straights are long enough, though, and I think the degradation is going to be high enough, that overtaking is going to happen because of the pace on tyres. "It will be tricky, but it opens itself up because [of] all the different lines, you can do different lines, not maybe not your ideal line, but you can get away with doing different lines to stay away from the dirt. "If you watched Lewis in the Sprint race [in Brazil], that was a typical example of a driver looking for the clean lines to stay in clean air and keep the tyres cool, but also able to stay so close. "It's kind of a trick. It's kind of what you need to do in a track like Qatar."
Hot tracks should favour Red Bull
Mercedes have admitted they tend to fare better in cooler conditions and Albon reckons Red Bull have opposite characteristics, favouring "hot tracks". Although the Qatar GP will be a night race, the temperature is still set to be high. Qualifying and the race take place at 17:00 local time, after the sun has set. "High degradation, we tend to be quite good on hot tracks," said Albon. "Also, we tend to be a little bit stronger so far on medium- and high-speed corners. "That leads ourselves to Qatar, but I don't want to talk too soon, because it's also quite a high-speed track. So straight-line speed is going to be important."
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