09/04/2024
NEWS STORY
Another day, another crash, as Alex Albon admits that his first lap clash with Daniel Ricciardo was exactly what his team doesn't need.
With both Williams failing to see the flag after separate encounters with Valtteri Bottas last time F1 was in Japan, one might have thought that Albon and his American teammate, Logan Sargeant, might exercise a little more caution on their subsequent visit, especially knowing the precarious state of the team in terms of spares.
However, just 48 hours after Sargeant caused "a lot of damage" after crashing into the barriers in opening practice, teammate Albon did even more in a first lap clash in today's race with Ricciardo.
While the stewards opted to take no further action and described it as a "first lap racing incident", they admitted that had it occurred at another stage in the race things might have been different.
Though Ricciardo was seeking to avoid Lance Stroll, some might argue why Albon put himself in such a perilous position - so early in the race - in the first place, then again his choice of starting tyre made clear that the Williams driver was seeking an aggressive start.
With no hope of a spare car until Miami, and the added risk of a Sprint in Shanghai in the meantime, the Thai driver admits that today's incident was the last thing his team needed.
"Immediately... before I even hit the wall," he replied, when asked if the current situation facing the team had occurred to him at the time of the crash.
"It's exactly what we don't need," he added. "The impact itself was relatively low speed, but it's the way that I hit the tyre wall. 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," he continued, "not for me, but for the car, because that's where you can do damage.
"We haven't had the car back yet," he added. "We need to assess it, hopefully it's okay.
"He didn't see me, clearly," he said of the clash. "I tried to back out of it last minute. There was a moment where I realised he hadn't seen me, the way he's pulling across, so I hit the brakes and tried to get out of it. But I was almost too far alongside him and he still was coming across, I couldn't avoid it."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Suzuka here.