'This one is on me': Albon owns up to British GP lap one mistake

Alex Albon did not search for excuses after his British Grand Prix last weekend at Silverstone unravelled almost as soon as it had begun.

Instead, the Williams driver pointed the finger squarely at himself after an opening-lap collision with Oliver Bearman left his race in tatters, forcing an early front wing change and condemning him to an afternoon spent at the back of the field.

With a time penalty added to the damage, any hopes of salvaging a points challenge quickly disappeared. Rather than chasing an unlikely recovery, Williams switched focus, using the remainder of the race to gather valuable data on its latest upgrades.

Albon accepts full responsibility

The decisive moment came on the opening lap when Albon locked up and made contact with Bearman's Haas, an error that immediately derailed his afternoon.

The Thai driver was candid in his post-race assessment, accepting there was nobody else to blame.

"My mistake. I think I had a bad start and locked up basically,” he explained.

“It happens, unfortunately kind of ruined the race and then we started to box and test the new front wing out a little bit and do some stuff we wouldn’t normally have time to do on a normal race weekend.

"Sums up the season so far, yeah, just need a smooth one basically. This one was on me, this race, Lap 1 wasn’t good enough, but we’ll look to come back stronger."

Once Albon dropped to the rear of the field, the race effectively became an extended development exercise. Williams had introduced a revised front wing at Silverstone, and with little left to fight for on track, the team took advantage of the opportunity to collect additional information ahead of future races – until Albon’s retirement on lap 43.

It was another frustrating chapter in what has been a stop-start campaign for the Williams charger, who has now accumulated three retirements and one non-start this season.

Williams still searching for answers

While Albon's race unravelled almost immediately, teammate Carlos Sainz endured a similarly disappointing afternoon despite another impressive getaway from the grid.

The Spaniard briefly climbed into the top 10 before slipping back as Williams' lack of race pace once again became evident.

"Unfortunately, very good starts this year pretty much every race but we don’t have the pace to hold onto those positions. In the end, you always end up falling back to the place of the car in Quali, which is 14th, 15th,” he said.

"Disappointing day, disappointing weekend as we expected a lot more form this new package that we brought here."

Sainz believes his own performances have remained strong, but admits it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the team's lack of progress relative to its midfield rivals.

"I am here to perform and I know I’m performing at a very high level this year in qualifying and in the race, race starts, everything that is under my control. I think I am doing a pretty good job,” the 31-year-old added.

• Read also: Sainz hit with rare penalty after Safety Car error at Silverstone

"But it is true in the long term, it starts being a bit frustrating because we are very far away from the points, very far away from the [Racing Bulls] which is a car in my opinion that this year we should have been targeting to beat.

"A lot to think about, a lot to consider, a lot of questions to be asked about how we are developing this car as in my mind we don’t seem to be finding any performance."

For Albon, however, the post-race conversation began and ended with the first lap. Williams may have salvaged useful technical data from a lost afternoon, but the driver himself was left reflecting on a mistake he readily admitted had set the tone for everything that followed.

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