‘Not ideal’ – Albon reflects on ‘unfortunate’ collision with Piastri that put him out of Canadian Grand Prix

Alex Albon has given his take on the “unfortunate” collision with Oscar Piastri that forced him to retire from the Canadian Grand Prix, with the Thai racer admitting that it was “not ideal” given that things had just started to feel better for him in the car.

Albon had made a decent start to the race in Montreal and had gained positions from his P18 starting slot when he was hit by Piastri on Lap 13, the McLaren driver suffering a lock-up that caused him to run into the Williams.

Asked how frustrating the incident was given how the Grand Prix had been going for him up until that point, Albon responded: “Yeah, not ideal.

“I think that was the first time in the weekend that things just started to feel more comfortable, so we need to understand why because I think what we did wasn’t extreme and it worked out quite well, so some learnings there.

“Obviously with Oscar, just unfortunate. I don’t think he planned to do the overtake, just got caught out with the track conditions and it happens. I think points were definitely possible today, but oh well.”

Albon was also quizzed on whether there would be a lot of work for the team to do in different areas following the race.

“Yeah. Honestly, I feel like we’re down on track time,” the 30-year-old conceded. “I really haven’t done many laps this year so far – either we’re doing pit stops or we’re having DNFs or whatever.

“We just need to get some rhythm – get some rhythm into a weekend, get some good laps under my belt, understand the car better, and then just build from there really. It feels like we haven’t really just had a smooth weekend for now. It will come, and just unfortunate but, yeah, let’s hope that’s Monaco.”

While Piastri was able to remain in the running following the clash with Albon, the Australian – who received a 10-second time penalty for the incident – endured a tough afternoon at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, culminating in finishing without any points in P11.

“I think it’s just one of those days,” he acknowledged afterwards. “Not a lot went well from any angle really so, yeah, just one of those days to kind of forget and go again in a couple of weeks really.

“But yeah, obviously the damage was a shame, and apologies to Alex and to Williams because it certainly wasn’t intentional. I just locked up and went into the side of him.”

Piastri’s difficult day had begun when McLaren opted to start the race on the intermediate tyres, a decision that backfired as both cars had to pit for slicks within the first two laps and subsequently dropped backwards.

Sharing an insight into why the decision was made, Piastri said: “Between the anthem and getting in the car, the ground got a fair bit wetter and getting to the grid on slicks was a massive challenge, so we thought being on inters might be… you know.

“It clearly didn’t look that wet, and wasn’t that wet in the end, but we felt like it really didn’t need to be very wet at all for the inters to be a good call. We were too safe in some ways, so one to review.”