Lewis Hamilton is known for his exploits on an F1 racetrack. The 7x champion has made it a habit of winning and he’s portrayed his qualities of empathy and integrity to shape his public persona. But behind it all is the dark truth of him arguably ruining the career of an up-and-coming star of the future.

It was all a fairytale for a British-Thai driver when he debuted in F1 in 2019 and immediately hit the ground running with Red Bull‘s B-team, Toro Rosso (now AlphaTauri). Ironically enough, it all went downhill when after spotting his talents, he was promoted to the big seat. After a squalid year with the Bulls, he was given the boot, and forced to sit 2021 on the sidelines. But with Williams, Alex Albon has just gone on to prove how premature and erroneous the people were who wrote him off. But to blame a drop in form, or an inability to cope with the pressures of competing toe-to-toe with Max Verstappen alone, would be folly.

Lewis Hamilton blamed for Alex Albon’s downfall

While the duo have almost always been at two different spectrums of the F1 grid, Hamilton and Albon have had two infamous meetings. The first one came at the 2019 Brazilian GP when Hamilton overzealously took the 27-year-old out in the closing laps of the race and denied him of a maiden podium finish. But what happened in Austria next year, would break Albon.

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His first-ever full-time season behind the wheel of a Red Bull, and Albon was on for his maiden GP win. But Hamilton replayed the scenes of just two races ago, and denied him of his golden chance.

On a recent episode of the Inside Line F1 podcast, team advisor Helmut Marko claimed, “He [Albon] was turned around by Hamilton and that hit his confidence massively. A P2 and a win was on the table.”

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What does the 7x champion think about this, though?

Hamilton was left confused by Albon incident

It was deja vu for both Hamilton and Albon. The Red Bull driver DNFed from the race, and Hamilton picked up a 5-second time penalty for his troubles. However, rather than being remorseful, the Brit was actually quite perplexed!

Formula1.com quoted him after the race as saying, “Obviously I had great pace to catch up with Valtteri [Bottas] and then a really unfortunate situation with Alex. I can’t believe we came together again. It really felt like a racing incident. But either way I’ll take whatever penalty they feel I deserve and move forward.”

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Do you think Lewis Hamilton is to blame for Alex Albon’s ruined Red Bull career?