Alex Albon addressed his intense radio messages during the Japanese Grand Prix.
The Thai-British driver vented his anger over the team radio to his engineer James Urwin on multiple occasions. In response to Haas pitting rookie Oliver Bearman, Albon raged, “Yeah, well pit before then!” He also fumed, “Honestly, you guys make absolutely no sense.” However, his most passionate exchange came after he was disappointed in how his car was shifting through its gearbox. He exclaimed:
“These shifts are so bad. What have we done to them? It’s been **** at the start, it’s being **** now.”
The team asked for specifics, to which he responded: “Yeah, the same! The same I’ve been talking about all the time.”
Albon defended the radio exchanges while speaking to the media after the race, stating that although fans were not used to hearing that side of him, it’s quite normal during the high-adrenaline moments of the race. He explained:
“That is honestly me in my car. I am not… If you had my radio, you would hear me more like that than not like that.
“But for the most part, we had a couple of shift issues that we’ve been testing all weekend, and we settled on one that we were quite happy with but it didn’t feel like the one that we settled on at the start of the race. So, it felt a little bit like we were driving with an FP1 and FP2, which I wasn’t too happy with.
Alex Albon, Williams
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
“Strategy wise, it was more just because Max overtook me on track, and then we boxed a lap after and I felt that we just lost unnecessary time in that exchange.”
Speaking about the race overall, the Williams driver noted:
“It was a very simple race, maybe a little on the boring side. But I don’t mind boring when I am scoring points.
“We had a couple of shift issues. We settled one one we are happy with but it didn’t feel like the one we settled on at the start of the race.
“I wasn’t too happy with that.”
