Frustrated Albon explains tetchy team radio message during Hungarian Grand Prix

Alex Albon has shed light on the frustrated radio message he was heard making to his Williams race engineer during the Hungarian Grand Prix, when he accused the team of being “indecisive”.

Having made a good start from P13 on the grid, Albon eventually found himself caught up in a queue of cars behind the Aston Martin duo of Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso. but a request to change his strategy drew a curt response from the Thai driver, who eventually finished outside the points in 14th.

After his engineer told him: “So Alex, we’re now thinking you’re going to have to go to plan B,” Albon responded, “Yeah but I don’t appreciate when you do that, and now my tyres are dead. We’re just too indecisive!”

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Asked about the message after the race, Albon joked: “I think this is the only thing that must have gone on TV! Everyone’s been asking the same question! It wasn’t that bad, was it?”

Reflecting further on the reasons behind it, the 28-year-old continued: “It was only because we had a great start, and I thought, ‘Okay, perfect, we’re in a fight for points.’ We had very good pace in the first stint as well.

“We tried to undercut Fernando but we couldn’t, we didn’t, and I think that was the deciding factor, because if we got past Fernando we would’ve not been held back by Fernando. Fernando was playing a good team game, he bunched up the whole group to allow Lance to pit and extend his stint.

“And then we went from a two-stop to a three-stop, and then in the middle of that strategy call we went back to a two-stop, so I kind of used up all my tyres ready for the three-stop, ready to be boxed, and then I just got left out.

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“Obviously they know better than me, but just in terms of the tyres, they took a punishing for no reason, basically.”

Pushed on whether there were still positives to take from the weekend, Albon responded: “Yeah, there is. There’s a definite positive trend, if you look at Barcelona to here, tracks that are quite similar, and we’ve done really well, considering. So, it’s relative, but I’m happy.”

As for team mate Logan Sargeant, the American had had a decent qualifying – lining up in P14 on the grid – but struggled off the line come race day before eventually ending the Grand Prix in P17.

“That start haunts me!” Sargeant said with a laugh when speaking to the media after the Grand Prix. “It’s just so, so on the limit and I slightly overstepped and didn’t move, so I don’t even know where I ended up, but it was way back there and that just made the race an uphill battle.

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“Pace-wise I think it was okay, we tried to get aggressive with stops, tried to get some undercuts, didn’t quite work out, so that ends up making it even worse because you’re stuck in dirty air for longer stints.

“But, yeah, it is what it is. I think apart from that start I’m happier with my weekend, so just got to keep going and hopefully put everything a little bit better together in Spa.”