Alex Albon says he felt he couldn’t do any more in an opening lap 2023 Brazilian Grand Prix crash that involved himself, Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen at Interlagos.
As the lights went out Hulkenberg got a poor start relative to the Williams and his teammate, who both jumped ahead, but in his eagerness to open up the corner, Magnussen came across prematurely and sandwiched his 36-year-old colleague.
Hulkenberg made contact with both cars but managed to continue, but Albon and Magnussen‘s races were over before they even managed to get through Turn 1 leaving the Thai-British driver frustrated about the situation.
“Frustrating,” Albon said to the media, when asked about the incident. “I don’t think I could have done anything different.
“I was as far right as I could go, I think that Haas on the left was slightly blindsided, it kind of went across a little bit, squeezed in the middle Haas and that was it really.”
Albon rues missed opportunity
Albon had a strong qualifying position and was already up a place as Charles Leclerc crashed out on the formation lap.
The former-Red Bull man started 14th and had gained two places over both Haas cars, before being hit, meaning that there was a shot at points for the team.
“It happens,” Albon added. “It’s just unfortunate because this is basically what we don’t want. There’s a there’s a Ferrari out, Daniel’s [Ricciardo] a lap down. There’s Piastri a lap down.
“There’s a chance to score points and they’re the races that we do well at, we scrap at. Now it’s it’s open for one of our championship rivals to take.”
Haas drivers react
Magnussen was audibly annoyed by the accident, in what became his second DNF in successive races but the Danish racer stopped short of blaming his teammate for the crash.
“I got a good start and had a good feeling with the car and the soft tyre on the lap to the grid,” Magnussen said to media. “I was telling engineer it might be a bit good, because I had a really positive feeling in the car.
“It’s typical, unlucky. I’ve hit the wall twice now with no fault of my own, it’s a little bit frustrating.”
Hulkenberg couldn’t contain his sarcasm as he described the incident, but like the other two involved he also didn’t feel as though he was to blame for the three-car crash.
“Both cars attracted to me,” Hulkenberg said to press. “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, which were able to repair in the red flag, but it was a shame because we lost the new set of soft tyres.
“Soft tyres were very handy today, they were almost definitely by far the best tyre to be on.”
