Alex Albon explains disappointing Q1 exit in Bahrain: “Messed up”

Alex Albon has reacted to his early qualifying exit in Bahrain, claiming he would have to review it with the Williams team but hinted that they got the timing wrong at the end of the session. 

The Williams driver wasn’t the only one cutting it fine in Q1, with Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda also leaving it to the last minute to start their final flying laps. Fortunately for the Red Bulls, they managed to progress to the next stage.

While speaking to Sky Sports F1 following his early qualifying exit, the Thai-British driver explained:

“We messed up on… Well, we need to review it, but we went out very late. I had to overtake 4 or 5 cars on my out lap to try and get a lap in, and then, we were sitting in a pit lane for a long time with the blankets off whilst all the cars were coming out on the pit lane.

“So, we started the lap maybe 15 degrees too cold on where we should have been, and then that was it really.

“So, you know, the margins here are so small. We talk about it every week and we just didn’t execute the right plan.”

When asked what the potential of the car is this weekend, Albon noted Sainz’s pace. The Spanish driver progressed through to Q3 and out-qualified his new team-mate for the first time this season with a P8 start. Albon added:

“I think Carlos will put it where it should be. He’s been good this weekend and I think we’re fairly closely matched. So I think close to Q3, but it was always going to be tight.

“Our race pace was good. Our strategy is going to be important. This is not going to be a Suzuka, so there’s going to be a few laps, a few different strategies. We’ll see which one’s the right one for us.”