Albon: Points on the cards in Canada before ‘frustrating’ Sainz hit

Alex Albon feels that a points-scoring finish was on the board in the Canadian Grand Prix before he found himself on the receiving end of mishap by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.

Albon was battling the Spaniard for P10 in the second half of the race when he was delayed by Red Bull’s Sergio Perez who had run wide at Turn 6, a setback that allowed Sainz to overtake the Williams driver.

But one lap later at the same spot, Sainz was also caught out by the half-wet track.

The Ferrari spun but veered straight into the path of Albon’s oncoming car.

The Anglo-Thai racer attempted to take avoiding action, but the Ferrari’s rear end hit the Williams right-rear wheel which sent the latter onto the grass and into the wheel, sealing Albon’s retirement.

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“Yeah, frustrating, honestly,” reacted the Williams driver after his third DNF of the season.

“I think when I look at the race as a whole, it seemed like we didn’t take much risk in our strategy, but we were making good calls the whole time.

“You know, if you look at the Haas, they did a good gamble on the wets at the beginning of the race.

“You look at some of the guys that stayed out on the inter, not pitting for a new one in the middle of the race. We kind of just did what we felt was right for us.

“And even if it didn’t work out sometimes, we kept getting back the positions. We kept fighting back into the points and I was enjoying it out there.”

Albon was understandably annoyed by his misfortune as he felt that he was on target for a top-ten finish.

“There’s a lot to play for and I was having a lot of fun,” he continued. “And then two laps in a row, two drivers went off in the same corner.

“The first one, I lost the position. I had to avoid the crash. And then the lap after Carlos obviously had his spin.

“I was kind of expecting him to stop, but the way it kind of rolled around and I thought when I made my initial move to go left, ‘OK, that’s fine. I’ve got a position’.

“And then as I saw him coming and rolling around me, I was like, ‘OK, he’s going to clip my rear right’. Bit of a passenger.

“So frustrating because for sure points was available today.”

In Montreal, Albon made the top-ten qualifying shootout for the second race in succession. However, it was a feat he owed largely to Ferrari’s dismal performance.

But the Williams charger is generally confident over the future, noting that the Grove-based outfit’s development programme has yet to really kick in.

“That’s two races now where we should have been scoring points,” he said.

“Last race, we did score points. This race, I felt like we’re unlucky not to. I think it’s a little bit track specific. I would like to see where we are in Barcelona.

“That being said, we still have upgrades and updates coming. We haven’t really done that much so far this year, especially aerodynamically. I’m hopeful.”

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