Albon Under Consideration For Vacant Nissan Seat
Calum Gill 12:38 26/07/2021
Former Red Bull F1 driver Alexander Albon is among a couple of names under consideration by Nissan e.dams to fill their vacant seat for the 2021-22 season.
Nissan so far only have 2015-16 champion Sébastian Buemi contracted for next season, following Oliver Rowland's departure from the team after the Berlin E-Prix. The 28-year-old Briton is expected to link up with the Mahindra team on a reported multiple-year contract from the start of 2021-22.
Back in 2018-19, Albon had originally signed to partner Buemi at Nissan, before he was taken to Formula 1 by the Toro Rosso team, following the Red Bull junior team's decision to offload Brendon Hartley at the end of the 2018 F1 season. Albon, who races under the Thai flag, was subsequently promoted to the senior Red Bull team to replace the under-performing Pierre Gasly after 12 rounds of the 2019 season. In his second season with the team in 2020, Albon scored two podiums before being dropped to a reserve role to make way for Sergio Perez. Albon, who currently races in the German touring car series DTM, raced in the 2018 Formula 2 championship for the DAMS team, meaning he is still a contact of DAMS bosses.
The team's management duo of e.dams' Francois Sicard and Nissan's Tommaso Volpe have said that the effort to manufacture a return to the outfit for Albon is a serious one. “Obviously he (Albon) is amongst the ones we are considering and he kept contact with us so we are talking regularly,” said Sicard. “He’s following what we do, so we are very close to Alex and he could be amongst the one we can select. But there are others and you have to know that Alex might have also other opportunities.” Volpe expanded on that, saying a decision had not yet been made, but that it's "in our interest to find and decide to make it public as soon as possible.”
Some of the other names that Nissan are keeping an eye on include Lucas di Grassi, Daniil Kvyat, Maximilian Guenther and Alex Lynn. Di Grassi has emerged as a surprise contender for a seat alongside his often bitter rival Buemi. The two, for two seasons straight, fiercely battled for the championship, with Buemi coming out victorious in 2015-16, and di Grassi winning the championship on the streets of Montreal a year later. It would seem rather strange to see the pair line up together, after all of the bitterness between each other in past seasons. Brazilian di Grassi has been on the search for a seat ever since the Abt organisation's desires to enter the championship as a customer team - following Audi's departure from the category - crumbled.
Kvyat has been without a drive since leaving the AlphaTauri F1 team at the back end of 2020, and has spent 2021 so far as a test driver for the recently rebranded Alpine F1 Team. Guenther currently drives for the BMW i Andretti team, picking up his first win of the season in the first New York City race. Although Andretti will remain in the series, and they will continue to use the BMW iFE.21 next year, at least one of Guenther or teammate Jake Dennis could depart. Given that Dennis leads his teammate by 19 points in the standings, with 2 races to go, Dennis is arguably in the better decision to secure another year with Andretti. Lynn, who took his maiden win in the second London race, currently drives for the team where Nissan's departing Rowland is headed for, Mahindra. With Rowland secured on a rumoured multi-year-deal, you would imagine it is a battle between Lynn and fellow Briton and teammate Alexander Sims to partner Rowland next year. Given Lynn is ahead by 34 points, and also has a race win to his name this year, he is arguably in the better position to line up alongside the incoming Rowland next year.
