Albon: No hesitation repeating Hamilton move

Alex Albon has said he would do exactly the same thing if presented with the same opportunity to overtake Lewis Hamilton at the Red Bull Ring.

Albon was on the wrong end of a collision with the six-time World Champion for the second time in three races and both had the same outcome in denying him a glorious opportunity to claim a maiden Formula 1 podium.

Hamilton felt the collision was a racing incident but Albon, and even more vocally Christian Horner, believe Hamilton’s five-second penalty was more than justified.

Albon was once again asked for his thoughts a few days removed from the clash.

“No, not at all. I think it’s just bad circumstances that we’ve come together twice. But that’s about it,” Albon said in Thursday’s FIA press conference, when asked if he would change his approach in wheel-to-wheel combat.

“To be honest there wasn’t too much really to say, I think, it is what it is. I’m sure Lewis didn’t intend to make contact.

“I do think we had a chance [to win].

“The guys did an amazing job to find the opportunity to put us on the soft tyres and when we came out [of the pits], obviously the two Mercs were on cold tyres after a double Safety Car period, so it was looking good for us and I knew we had to do the overtakes early to get the chance to get to [eventual race winner Valtteri] Bottas. But I do think we could have done something special.”

Verstappen was sat alongside Albon, socially distanced of course, and gave his opinion of the incident.

“I think Lewis didn’t intend of course to hit Alex,” Verstappen said.

“It’s unfortunate that it happened. I think it was a great move of Alex to go around the outside there, I think not many people do that.

“But it was cool to see, even though I shouldn’t have seen that, but I was chilling in my driver room already!

“I think it’s quite normal to give that penalty.

We are told not to look at the consequence of [incidents] and that is the unfortunate part afterwards, because of course it ruined Alex’s race.

“But for my side, [Lewis] got a penalty, he finished fourth, but Alex is still the one who got penalised the most by losing so many positions.

“You can talk about it for a very long time, but I think it’s more important now to just look ahead, look forward to the weekend and both of us just want to score a good result.”

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