Daniil Kvyat, AlphaTauri, Nurburgring, 2020

Albon given two penalty points for collision Kvyat branded “unprofessional”

2020 Eifel Grand Prix

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Alexander Albon has had two penalty points added to his licence for his collision with Daniil Kvyat during the Eifel Grand Prix.

Albon and Kvyat collided following a Virtual Safety Car period when the pair were disputing 10th place. Albon attempted to pass Kvyat at the Veedol chicane, but his rival ran wide and cut the corner. Kvyat returned to the racing line and Albon swept past him.

But the Red Bull driver squeezed the AlphaTauri before they entered the corner. The pair made contact, removing Kvyat’s front wing.

Albon was given a five-second time penalty, but retired from the race. His two penalty points mean he is now on a total of seven for the current 12-month period.

Kvyat was unimpressed with his rival’s driving. “I didn’t understand his manoeuvre, really,” he said.

“What was he doing? I think it was quite unprofessional of him and very poor judgement. I wouldn’t expect that from a driver of his level, he’s been racing for so long.”

The AlphaTauri carried substantial damage as a result of the collision. “The race was pretty much ruined from there on,” said Kvyat.

“I had to do the whole lap very slow with the damage front wing. The front wing as a consequence went under the floor, damaged my whole floor and brake cooling.

“The race from there was really a struggle because the car was massively down on downforce. I was just really hoping for rain or some something really strange to happen.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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49 comments on “Albon given two penalty points for collision Kvyat branded “unprofessional””

  1. Again Albon with the clumsy moves. Glad he’s finally getting the penalty he deserves.

    1. Blaize Falconberger (@)
      11th October 2020, 15:23

      Yep, we have to acknowledge that, whilst his fans will often argue that colisions often aren’t his fault, he is a common denominator in a lot of them!

      1. Erm, every driver is the common denominator in collisions they are involved in!

        1. Blaize Falconberger (@)
          11th October 2020, 16:28

          A lot of the collisions that occur…

        2. Yeah but when one driver consistently crashes he is the common denominator

      2. Does Albon has fans? Really? Where are they?

  2. Time for Redbull to give the seat to Hulk or Gasly. Albon is a very average driver. Future world champion or team leader he definitely is not.

  3. Albon vs gasly vs kyvat for the slow number 2 red bull is really entertaining

  4. Another dreadful performance. Get Perez in for next year.

    1. Agreed. Would love to see Perez in there. Think of the strategy flexibility with A redbull thats always good on its tyres and Perez… man the car wouldn’t need to stop save for the regs.

  5. This contact wouldn’t have happened if the front wings weren’t so ridiculously long.
    Today’s F1 cars are too long and it’s ruining racing.

    1. Also wouldn’t have happened if Albon had any spatial awareness.
      He’s proved his lack of that and knowledge of the laws of physics several times.

      1. @sham Yes, it indeed was lack of spatial awareness from his side. A bit similar to Perez against Sirotkin in Singapore two years ago.

        1. I think that was more Perez road rage ;-)

        2. @jerejj Have to agree with LB, Perez knew perfectly well where Sirotkin was and he tried to bully him back.

      2. Spatial awareness is overrated, look Vettel, he got 4 wc for himself without it.

    2. AJ (@asleepatthewheel)
      11th October 2020, 16:20

      After cutting the chicane, Kvyat let Albon go past..all he had to do was drive straight

    3. Oh come on…Albon made an error in judgment. Complaints about the length or width of the cars don’t apply when the driver makes a balls of it!

  6. Albon complained that gasly races him too hard??…He was surprised, but we were not…..Time for him to go and Hulk would be a good choice

    1. “They race me so hard”

      they obvs know that you are easy to get a mental edge on and that you give up if pushed just a little.

    2. Obviously they will race the wheels off against him, to be they guys that beat a RB with a midfield car.

  7. Qualified poorly, lost position at the start, lock up in first stint so ruining the tires and therefore strategy, then running into another car on a bloody straight, and that was only half of the race. He should be thankful his engine died, or maybe Redbull had enough so pulled him out to avoid further embarrassment.

    1. @ivan-vinitskyy you also forgot to mention that, when he had his lock up on the opening lap, he also ended up running into the back of Ricciardo – fortunately for both drivers, Albon didn’t hit him with too much force. I’m fairly sure Albon had at least a couple of lock ups during that first stint – there was the lock up where he clipped Ricciardo, and then I thought I saw another large lock up into the first corner, which then pushed him into making that pit stop.

      It is drawing comparisons with where Gasly was in 2019, and you can see why some are questioning whether Red Bull are being somewhat lenient on him when compared to the treatment Gasly got.

      If you look at where Gasly was at the time he was demoted, Gasly was at least ahead of the midfield drivers in the WDC – Albon is currently being beaten by Ricciardo, Norris and Perez – and Albon has now been involved in three collisions on track that have resulted in him being given penalty points.

      Now, I know there are those who argue that the British GP was a harsh penalty for Albon to get, but it has to be said that does still mean he’s been involved in more collisions on track where he was judged to be at fault than Gasly was during the same time he was at Red Bull for in 2019.

      OK, Albon’s got slightly more points than Gasly had over a comparable number of races, but not by much – and arguably that still isn’t a great performance, as Ferrari’s weaker form this season means Albon arguably has less competition for position.

  8. So, what will it be this time? Tsunoda to AT, Daniil back to RB, Alex to the simulator, Gasly taking podiums in the Alpha?

    1. @RocketTankski Both Tsunoda and Vips at AT (should both become eligible for a super license), and Gasly back to RBR.

    2. Daniil back to RBR? No way, clearly Gasly is a better driver then Kvyat! Maybe they can get Perez or Hulkenberg, but i heard a rumor that Perez is going to Haas. Also it doesn’t fit tthe RBR philosophy to get an experienced driver outside of their academy right?

  9. I Love Albon and have kept holding out hope for him but by this point i’ve given up.

  10. Albon not making a strong case for next year.

    1. @aapje Indeed. Maybe Red Bull should start to consider options from the ‘outside’ (Perez, Hulkenberg) more seriously than before as stop-gap solutions unless they’d give Gasly another chance in the main team.

  11. Albon should be permanently banned from anywhere on the grid. A total danger even to his own team mates.

    Exactly same thing he did against Lewis, and the corrupted FIA officials awarded Lewis Penalty points.
    Albon is a loser and the officials are equally incompetent losers.

    1. @Rott The cases with Lewis weren’t his fault, although the one with Kvyat was, 100%.

      1. Disagree with that, with the exception of the contact at Brazil last year. The contact this year could’ve easily avoided Albon needed patience. Running into someone else’s tyres especially when he had more speed and grip, not buying it irrespective of the penalty Ham got.

      2. @jerejj Austria was Albon’s fault just as much as Hamilton really. Just look at the footage. Albon cuts back in when he must have known Hamilton would be struggling to make a tighter line on those worn tyres. Albon had at least a meter if not meter and a half of track to his left.

        Brazil was also just clumsy though. Leave the door wide open (in his words because he was afraid that Hamilton might try something) and then he cuts over the apex anyway. Hamilton trying to get out of that accident made it look more like Hamilton’s fault. But still, fair enough, Hamilton would have never made that pass without “help” from Albon and he could not really expect that

    2. Permanently banned? Really? Would you say the same thing about Max?

  12. A dreadful performance before the reliability-related DNF. Two lock-ups that caused a flat-spot forcing him to a relatively early pit stop and getting stuck in traffic, and, of course, also the lack of spatial awareness against Kvyat. If he could stay in the top-four consistently, he’d be less bound to unforced errors instead of losing a position (or more) at the starts and so on, etc.

  13. This race for Albon felt a bit like Gasly’s 2019 Hungary race…where he performed so badly it made it impossible for RBR to think about keeping him on any longer. Fortunately for Albon, there’s not much chance of him being replaced at this point in the season since there’s only a few races left and there’s not really anything at stake, but I think he’s basically made up Red Bull’s mind for them about whether he’s worth keeping for 2021 or not.

  14. Max Verstappen has been so quietly impressive this season. You can ALWAYS count on him to be best of the non-Mercs and sometimes we forget that it’s not easy to be as quick and reliable as he has been.

    Luckily Albon reminds us!

    1. People said the same about Vettel in 2015. When that really was just a case of a very poorly performing team mate too.

      If Ricciardo was still with Red Bull, they would be winning races. On merit. The car is clearly fast enough on race pace. It was faster than Hamilton’s Mercedes.

      1. The RBR car was not faster then Hamilton’s Mercedes. Max lost on average a 0,5 sec in the third sector. RBR can only win races when something goes wrong with the Merc car. Max could only win Silverstone because of tyre degradation with Merc. On the straights RBR still losses 0,6 to 0,8 sec on an average lap. Ricciardo is certainly not a better driver then Max!

        1. Its simply not true that the Red Bull was 0.5s a lap slower in race trim. They were easily within 0.3s a lap. There may be an argument that Ricciardo is a better driver than Max too but time will tell on that one. Maybe it’ll be fairer to judge Ricciardo when he’s not driving a car that has a clear 0.5s deficit to Verstappen.

    2. How so? He has the fastest car for the weekend ( as what the fastest lap showed) yet lost 5 seconds to Lewis in less than 10 laps.

      0 passes, 0 challenge from a team mate, did nothing but to inherit a p2, I think that Honda engine is way too good. Max breaks down the car too often and not delivering enough race wins, and Honda says sayanora.

      1. The DNF’s where not Max his fault. He maximized the results when he not had a DNF! He didn’t have the fastest car at all today! If you followed the lap times you could see he lost a lot of time in the third sector. On average a 0,5 sec in that sector! Also if he had the fastest car why did he qualified third on saturday? Doesn’t make sense at all! Ask Albon if RBR has the fastest car!

        1. Some people need to learn that getting the flap does not mean you have the fastest car. You don’t get the flap by cruising and managing your advantage. You rarely get the flap if you don’t go for it. Many times a clearly slower car has got the flap by going for a late pit stop and changing to the softest available tyre.

    3. Not only this season

  15. Where are penalty points for Grosjean incident from Hungary?

  16. RBR should really look into getting Perez.

    1. Yep!!!
      RBR require a good consistent driver to score vital Constructors’ points &, should Max walk, a new #1.

  17. The problem with Albon is with his timing.
    He makes these mistakes when he’s confronted with an approaching corner he focuses too early on his lines and forgets there is another car still very close. Besides that he appears to be a very reasonable driver who just happens to be under pressure to deliver without having built up his confidence.

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