Alex Albon encountered a frustrating Sunday at the F1 Spanish GP this weekend for Williams. Retiring midway through the race after sustaining too much damage.
Albon would start the Spanish Grand Prix from P11 following Saturdays Qualifying Session. Ahead of teammate Carlos Sainz who qualified down in P18.
Sunday’s race proved difficult from lights out for Alex Albon. Suffering an issue with the clutch that lost him positions and resulted in the first bit of contact and front wing damage for the Williams driver at turn 1 as he got caught up with Lawson and Hülkenberg.
When asked about the first incident Albon explained that there was a chain reaction caused by the New Zealander:
“My clutch drop felt good, I believe I was on target, but we just had an issue with the clutch.
“We lost out quite heavily at the beginning, that cascaded or put us back on the back foot into Turn 1.
“There was a concertina, the cars avoided each other and I was the last one to get hit, so I lost my front wing.”
The contact at Turn 1 forced Williams into an early 3-stop race. Dropping Albon down to the back of the grid on lap 1.
“It forced us into a 3-stop because of that, but an early 3-stop and then we had to do a front wing change.
“You do the 3-stop without an undercut, it’s like the worst of everything. Everyone’s coming out in front of you.”
Albon takes avoiding action against Lawson
Whilst fighting for position with Liam Lawson, Albon was handed a 10-second penalty after being forced wide and using the escape road to rejoin the track and hold onto his position out of turns 2 and 3.
Reflecting on the pentalty after the race Albon belived it was his corner and therefore he was allowed to keep the place.
“I don’t know how I was ever going to make the corner. For me it was an avoiding action.
“I thought he couldn’t complete the move cleanly without pushing me, so I’m entitled to the position.”
Before the pentalty was awarded, Lawson and Albon came together again, this time making contact and damaging the Williams’ drivers front wing for a second time.
While reflecting on the contact, Albon stated he was not trying to fight the Racing Bulls driver too hard as Lawson had much fresher rubber.
“A bit of a tricky one, I think I tried my best to stay out of the way. I think by that point my tyres were gone.”
Albon is forced to retire from the race
On lap 28 of the F1 Spanish GP Alex Albon retired from the race. Serving his 10 second time pentaly the lap prior.
In response to a question about the reason behind retiring the car and if they had run out of front wings to continue, Albon said:
“I don’t know about front wings, but we definitely took enough damage this race to not warrant any more risks.”
Albon also explained that he was unsure of what the full extent of the damage was to the car when asked if it wasn’t only damages to the two front wings:
“Honestly, it’s hard to know.
“A lot of the contact I was getting was on the side, not just clipping the front, but from the end pieces of the floor.”
“At that point the car was pretty badly wounded, and we decided to stop.”
A tough race after a good run of points finishes
Williams left Spain with no points, ending their 4-race run of finishing inside the top ten.
While adressing this, Albon reminded everyone that the team still have areas they need to improve. Barcelona has been a very weak track for the team in the last decade. Valtteri Bottas secured their last top 5 all the way back in 2016.
“As bad as it looks today, there’s some learnings from this weekend.
“I think we’ve shown that our car is going in the right direction. Q2 and P11 proves that. It shows we still have work to do.”
“We’re not this ultra midfield car that’s quick everywhere. We still have our flaws and our weaknesses.”
Albon also reflected on the team needing to understand why they seem to struggle so much in Spain.
“We need to look at this track and understand why is it always this circuit?
“We know it’s long corners, but we need to understand why the long corners.”
Despite a dissapointing F1 Spanish GP for Alex Albon, the Williams driver still belives that the team could have fought for a place in the top ten with a clean start.
“In the race, honestly, I think we could have been fighting for points. Could have, would have, should have. You never know.”
