The early stages of the Japanese Grand Prix had very little action to excite fans, though one driver caught the eye by launching an angry rant at his own engineer
F1 star Alex Albon turned the air blue as he launched an angry rant at his team during the Japanese Grand Prix. Williams driver Albon lined up in ninth place on the grid for Sunday morning’s race.
But it proved to be a difficult day from there for the Thai star, even though he was able to keep hold of his points-finish. Albon has enjoyed a successful season so far, finishing fifth in the Australian Grand Prix and then seventh in China.
The Suzuka Circuit in Japan was the next stop, though Albon felt as if he had been let down by his own team. The 29-year-old came over the radio several times to lambast his race engineer.
First, Albon was furious with a change Williams made to his car that impacted how well he was able to change gear. The driver hinted he had previously made it clear to his team what the problem was.
“These shifts are so bad. What have we done to them? It’s been s*** at the start, it’s being s*** now,” Albon said over team radio 10 laps in.
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His race engineer replied: “Okay, can you be a bit more specific as to where it is? We’ll try to help.” Albon then fumed: “Yeah, the same! The same I’ve been talking about all the time.”
His engineer acknowledged the message, but Albon came back on the radio 15 laps later following his pit stop. The Thai man had been brought in after Haas rival Ollie Bearman and Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda.
That led to Albon fuming at his strategy. He said over team radio: “Honestly you guys make no sense. Ridiculous. Well pit me before then!”
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Albon is usually a calm presence over team radio, making his outburts unusual. Saturday had been a happy day for Albon as he made it into Q3 for the third time in three races. Even then, he hinted that his Williams car did not feel totally right.
“That wasn’t bad! I’m happy with another Q3; we have a pretty consistent car! My best lap felt very different to the other laps though. We need to go through it all and understand why it changed, but that lap felt how I wanted it to feel,” Albon said.
“The balance that I’d been chasing was there. There are a couple of corners on the track that we’ve struggled with so if we can improve on those, we’ll be even more competitive. It should be a good race.”
Team principal James Vowles hailed Albon for his performance in qualifying and insisted he was delighted with the car. Vowles also claimed that Williams had been more set up for a race than for qualifying.
“It’s great to see that we are at our third race of the season and the car has remained competitive and able to get into Q3. I’m proud of Alex; he put together a great lap and, from his own commentary, I think there was more in it,” he said.
“But the want and desire to be further ahead than where we are is a good thing. What’s more positive is we have made more of a race than Qualifying car. Let’s see what happens tomorrow with the conditions, but I’m looking forward to it.”
