Williams Formula 1 driver Alex Albon has revealed that he attempted to get out of the crash with Daniel Ricciardo that ended his Japanese Grand Prix on the first lap.
Albon had started on the Soft compound and capitalised on Ricciardo being compromised through Turns 1 and 2 to line up the Australian on the approach to Turn 3.
However, Ricciardo, who had been battling with Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin, failed to spot that the Williams had cut underneath him and squeezed Albon to the grass.
The result was a slight touch as the track curved inwards which sent both drivers spiralling into the barrier and out of the race, prompting the stewards to stop the race.
Albon has revealed he was sizing up his rival for an overtake in the later sequence of corners and attempted to avoid the clash when he realised Ricciardo hadn’t seen him.
“Obviously Softs starting, so had a had a grip advantage, kind of prised the grip I had out of [Turn] two and was able to crawl underneath him and have a good run into three, more about just trying to get him a little bit offline from three and try and find a way for 4/5/6/7 to see if I could upset his line a little bit,” Albon reflected.
“Obviously just one of them things, he didn’t see me clearly. I tried to back out of it last minute.
“There was a moment where I realized he hasn’t seen me here and the way he’s pulling it across. It’s tricky. So I hit the brakes and tried to get out of it.
“But we’re almost too far alongside him that as the kind of backed out of it, but he still was coming across. And I couldn’t avoid this.
“Yeah, it’s not what we want. You know, it’s no secret that we are having a tough time with it at the moment with the parts we’ve got. Yeah, this is gonna hurt us for sure.”
Albon addressed that he had been unhurt in the accident and that he was fixated more on the damage done to the car amid the shortage of parts Williams has at present.
“Yeah, honestly, the impact itself was relatively low speed, but it’s the way that I hit the tyre wall,” he said.
“Normally, we have these kind of plastic barriers, the Armco. But this was much more dug in, and it really stops very violently.
“They’re the questions I’m worried about, not for me, for the car, because that’s where you can do damage. Yeah, we haven’t had the car back yet. It needs to assess it. Hopefully, it’s okay.”
Asked how soon the car’s condition was on his mind, Albon replied: “Immediately, as soon as I was before I even hit the wall, it was exactly what we don’t need. We need to assess it.”
Williams entered the season without a spare chassis, which resulted in Logan Sargeant being sidelined in the last round in Australia after Albon crashed out in FP1.
Meanwhile, Sargeant sustained a shunt in first practice this weekend that damaged his suspension and gearbox, with Albon’s incident the latest setback for Williams.
Albon has conceded that the Grove-based squad’s catalogue of crashes and the repairs that have had to be conducted will hamper the team’s development potential.
“I haven’t spoke to James [Vowles, Williams Team Principal] since the crash. He’s been on the pit wall,” Albon clarified.
“But yeah, you know, we know the extent, it’s not something to hide. We’re not hiding from it, it is just a lot of a lot of time and effort to, to repair, rather than to develop and then focus on the upgrades. So yeah, it will pay its toll later on into the season. But yeah, it’s heads down and focus forwards.”
Sargeant had been stringing together an encouraging race when he understeered wide at Degner 1 and went into the gravel, dropping back to last place on the road.
But Albon admits that Williams would have struggled to bag points even if he had seen the chequered flag, citing that its FW46 is not quick enough to score on merit.
“I don’t think at the minute we’ve got a car that can genuinely score points,” he proclaimed. “Maybe on the track, but on a track that suits us.
“Well, we haven’t really found that so far this year. But China is the perfect place. You know, everyone’s gonna go to China underprepared, not knowing what to expect.
“And that’s where you can kind of capitalise, and then do better than other people. So, so there’s a big opportunity in China.”
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