Albon addresses ‘paying the price’ after Colapinto divebomb

Alexander Albon has said he “paid the price” for Franco Colapinto’s dive-bomb up the inside of Turn 1 at the start of the Singapore Grand Prix.

In the opening metres of the race, the young Argentine, who started P12, threw his Williams up the inside of the first corner, moving him up into ninth position.

It was a move that immediately caught the ire of his team-mate, who jumped onto his radio, exclaiming: “Franco just divebombed! What is he doing?!”

Carlos Sainz called it “banzai” and in the melee Albon had to take to the run-off area, dropping down the order to P15, having started ahead of Colapinto in P11.

However, Albon insisted there was not anything to criticise in hindsight, as he walked back his lap 1 radio message.

“Everyone kind of concertinaed, basically everyone had to go straight into Turn 1, and obviously I was on the outside, so I paid the price,” he explained to media including RacingNews365 after retiring from the race with a power unit issue on lap 15 of 62.

“I mean, nothing really to criticise. I think in the end, it was unfortunate that I was the one on the other side of the corner.”

Meanwhile, Colapinto put up a good fight throughout the race in Marina Bay, but ultimately fell back to towards his starting position, crossing the line outside the points in P11.

Albon felt is was a “frustrating” weekend in which Williams should have scored points.

Going into further detail on the opening corner, he described the situation as four cars went side-by-side through the first braking zone of the race.

“The problem is basically I couldn’t turn left, because Carlos [Sainz] couldn’t turn left, because Yuki [Tsunoda] couldn’t turn left,” the 27-year-old said. “So it was just one of them ones. It’s nothing serious.

“[It is] a bit frustrating. I think the whole weekend’s been a bit frustrating. We had a car that should have been top 10 and we haven’t got that.”