Alexander Albon talks about losing out due to F1 Brazil GP crash along with the Haas pair, with Oscar Piastri and Daniel Ricciardo rue having being hit.
It was a stormy start in F1 Brazil GP with an incident that almost took out five cars but only two retired when the red flag was waved. That saved AlphaTauri’s Ricciardo and McLaren’s Piastri as their mechanics managed to repair the car.
Even Haas managed to repair Nico Hulkenberg’s who was hit by Williams’ Albon when the German’s teammate Magnussen came across on the left which squeezed him which put him near to the Thai driver on his right. This led to a collision between the other two.
Both Albon and Magnussen suffered the most and both were looking positive for the grand prix as well. That Thai reckoned that it was a missed chance for Williams in a race where many faltered as they are now locked in a battle against improving AlphaTauri.
For Magnussen and Hulkenberg as well, they are trying to recover back the lost championship positions. While it hurt Piastri but Ricciardo was largely disappointed as he felt points were on seeing the pace of teammate Yuki Tsunoda.
He was relieved to see-through the incident initially but the flying tyre hit his rear wing which almost took him out along with Piastri, who was hit on the rear by Magnussen. It was more or less a test session then as they were running a lap down.
Here’s what the drivers said –
Albon: “The last three races, so Mexico, the sprint race on Saturday and race on Sunday, we’ve been number one on starts. We’ve had very good starts, three in a row now. Sometimes it works for you like it did in Mexico. And sometimes it works against you, like it did here. So frustrating. I don’t think I could have done anything different. I was as far right as I could. I think that the Haas on the left was likely blindsided, went across a little bit, squeezed the middle Haas, and that was it. It was actually a big hit, you never want something like this head-on because obviously you get that motion which is never that nice but I am fine. I’m more just frustrated about having a good start going for nothing.
“We were ahead of the two Haas’, they were going to be the backstop, they were going to be the traffic makers, and if I could get past them early in the race, we would have had a really good chance to score points. It was only 100 meters, but in 100 meters it was looking like it was going the right way. I mean, it happens, it’s just unfortunate because races like this is what we don’t want where there’s a Ferrari out, Daniel is a lap down, there’s Piastri a lap down, and now there’s a chance to score points and these are the races we do well at. Now it is open for one of our championship rival to take. What’s more important than scoring points, is making sure the others aren’t scoring points. So if I wasn’t going to score points, I was going to hold up the right people who were to score points. I would rather Alfa Romeo score points than AlphaTauris.”
Magnussen: “Just got it. It was bad luck. I got a really good start, I had a really good feeling with the soft tyre, telling my engineers that it might be good. I had a really positive feeling in the car. It is typical and unlucky. I have hit the wall twice now for no fault of my own, so it is a little bit frustrating. I think Albon squeezed Nico and they had contact and then sent Albon into me like a chain reaction thing. It is what it is.”
Hulkenberg: “Both cars attracted to me. They wanted to come and give me a kiss, and they got to kiss. I think they don’t come again. There was minor damage on my car on the sidepod, which were able to repair in the red flag. It was very similar to Qatar to be honest, it was like deja vu for me, but it all happened so quickly. Alex is on my right, Kevin is coming up as the corner goes left, so I think he pushed it a bit too hard, and paid the price in the end. But it was a shame because we lost the new set of soft tyres. Soft tyres were very handy, they were almost definitely by far the best tyre to be on.”
Piastri: “I hit the brakes at Turn 1 and then looked in the mirror and I saw someone’s tyre flying through the air and thought that didn’t look very good. Sure enough, I got an impact after that, it’s a shame. Of course, there was nothing I could have done. When you qualify in those kinds of positions, you leave yourself much more at risk to stuff like that. It all kind of starts from Friday, unfortunately. After that I just tried to stay on the lead lap. And then, apart from that, just learn as much as I could. It’s not been the easiest of weekends. Thanks to the amazing effort from everyone to get the car back together in 20 minutes, which was no easy feat. I’ve got an extra 70 laps that I otherwise wouldn’t have. So, you know, I learned a lot, just in general, but also, when I come back [to Brazil] next year.”
Ricciardo: “Obviously, I saw quite a big crash in front of me so there was lots of debris. I felt like I was getting through it and then I saw a tyre off the rim frisbeeing through the air and it started getting closer. So, I remember kind of also ducking my head and I didn’t feel anything hit me. I was happy. But then I checked my mirrors and I saw the rear wing was pretty much off, so I assume then the tyre hit the wing. That was obviously frustrating. It’s funny, as soon as I realised it didn’t hit me, then I looked at the wing and I was like, ‘Dammit!’
“So, my immediate relief was turned into disappointment because I realised the race could be over. It’s funny, I think when you’re in that race mode, you kind of don’t even think about it. But now with hindsight, obviously I’m thankful that we all got out of it safe. All these things can always be worse. I’ll leave feeling certainly a little bit thankful for that. Now you look back at those things and it’s nice that it didn’t hit me.”
Here’s how the crash happened: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2023-sao-paulo-grand-prix-race-red-flagged-after-magnussen-and-albon-crash-on-lap-1.1781745252901507002.html
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