Throughout their seminal 2018 F2 season, each driver performed brilliantly, starting with Norris who secured his first feature race victory on debut in Bahrain, quickly followed by Albon in Baku and Russell in Barcelona.
It was ultimately Russell who finished on top, securing the title by 68 points over Norris, who was seven points clear of Albon. Despite the noise his success created, the Brit remained focused on the present.
“I don’t know how you felt but I wasn’t really thinking about F1 that much,” said Russell to his former F2 rivals. “It was kind of just driving and see what happens…”
“I was only thinking about F1,” Norris replies.
“Yeah, that’s why you didn’t win the championship!” Russell jokes. “Dreams too big. He’s already thinking years ahead! We [Russell and Albon] live in the moment.”
In fairness, Norris’s thoughts of F1 were justified, having already been identified by McLaren as “the golden boy” (as Russell puts it) and had been lined up for a F1 drive midway through his F2 campaign, pairing Carlos Sainz. Similarly, as a Mercedes junior driver, Russell had been branded a future world champion by many and was set to arrive at Williams in 2019 to race alongside Robert Kubica.
But Albon was racing on more uncertain ground, having been dropped from the Red Bull academy in 2012 begging his way into a F2 drive with DAMS.
“I think going into that year [2018], there was so much hype for both of you,” Albon recalls. “I remember just from someone who wasn’t in that hype. I was like, ‘OK, these boys are clearly big dogs.’ And then Bahrain, you guys qualified first and second – I was third, actually – and I was a little bit like, ‘Ooh, if it starts off like this, this is not good!’”