Leclerc is the only driver from a French Territory that has any chance of winning, so really he was the only one who could dedicate that victory to Hubert. That, and they were best mates
Whut? Monaco isn't a French territory. You must be thinking of France.
Yes that a bit special, because Monaco:
- has a french postal code
- is dépendant of France for certain matters (like Defense)
- have his soccer team playing in France Ligue 1
- host a WRC race that actually takes place in France, not Monte Carlo
- saw his promising driver, namely Leclerc, making his classes through the French federation, with Ocon, Hubert and Gasly.
Leclerc even heard the french anthem once after a victory in a lower championship.
But when a french TV interviewer asked him if we can consider him to be partly french, Leclerc categorically answered "no". And that's our final answer, then.
The frustration Red Bull had with Gasley was that he was unable to get through the pack (a perfect example of this was at Austria vs Kimi). While Albon struggled initially, towards the end he was on it.
Red Bull don’t expect anyone else to match Max’s speed, but they need a drive to be able to maximise the points available and Albon did that.
I followed Gasly very closely on each race since the start of the season, i.e. onboard cam with radio + sectors times.
I don't think, and never did that is has the "thing" that World Champions need to make the difference. But the simplistic view and interpretation that people have on his performances is quite insane. A lot of things happening are just not broadcasted on main TV stream, like for exemple most of Gasly overtakes at Baku when he start last and finished P6. And people who do not pay attention to tires are missing the whole story: regarding most of action we got on track nowadays, there's rarely more than a tire story behind. Today was not different, with Albon and Kyatt end race form over Ricciardo, Gasly, Grosjean and Perez being entirely down to tire compound and state. That's also why Gasly overtook Vettel at Silverstone, why Versappen won his first race this season by stomping on every one (with a 10 lap gap in tire freshness) and why Hamilton overtook him on Hungaroring. That obviously contradicts the romantic view of the sport we're looking for.
Considering all this and the former engine swap, Albon performance of today didn't look different from Gasly previous week-ends. Only long term results will speak.