Alexander Albon said his race-ending crash with Kevin Magnussen was frustrating after he’d made a rapid start and was eyeing the chance to add to Williams’ points haul.
The pair tangled on the approach to turn one after Albon made contact with Magnussen’s team mate Nico Hulkenberg, and spun into the other Haas.Albon believes another driver to the left of Hulkenberg didn’t realise there was another car to the right of the Haas.
“I had a great start,” he explained. “I think it was the best one on the grid. Got alongside the two Haas, it felt like we’re pretty much almost there.
“But I think the car on the far left was likely a bit blind-sided, started to move across but obviously there was myself and another Haas in between. It was one of them ones, it’s happened before, nothing you can do.”
He said the crash was especially unfortunate as it cost him a chance to score more points for Williams, who are in a fight for seventh place in the championship with Haas and two other teams.
“It’s just frustrating, obviously,” he said. “Just because we’re in a championship battle, we can’t really lose out on points like that and it kind of opened up the race for others to score points.”
“We knew if we could get past the Haas at the start we could have a good race,” he added. “It was looking like that. It’s one of them things.”
Magnussen, who retired for the second race in a row due to a crash, said it was a racing incident. “I got a really good start and then I think Albon squeezed Nico and they had contact and then sent Albon into me like a chain reaction thing,” he said. “It is what it is.”
“It’s not the first time there’s a disappointment,” Magnussen added. “You’ve just got to move on.”
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EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
5th November 2023, 23:26
I’m not going to argue about it being a racing incident, but if anyone squeezed anyone, it was Magnussen on the Hulk. Neither of the other two had any option to go anywhere other than the unlikely option of the Hulk backing out rapidly.
MacLeod (@macleod)
6th November 2023, 8:18
And Nico tried to get out of the squeez…. Magnussen was the most to blame here.
dot_com (@dot_com)
6th November 2023, 20:45
Such a shame. Albon could have had a great race here with a good start. He passed several cars in the sprint race and they’re good on the straights.