Albon's crash: 'Presumably due to sudden spike in tyre temperature'

Alexander Albon seemed to be on his way to a fine result in Melbourne. The Thai drove nicely in the top ten after a fine qualifying session, until he went hard into the wall on lap seven. End of race for the Williams driver, who had to recover from the big crash.

Once back in the garage with his team, Albon searched for the cause of his crash. "We’re still looking at the data but there was nothing unusual in the corner itself," he later told a Williams press release. "When I lost the car, I was going through slower than the previous lap; I went wide on the corner before and spiked the tyre temperatures, losing grip and going into the next corner a bit hot, so I think that’s what happened but we need to look at it."

Albon realised - especially given the retrospective high number of dropouts - that quite a few points were wasted in Australia. "I feel very much for the team. I'm disappointed because we had a great car today and we were very strong."

My Teammate Logan Sargeant did not manage to cross the finish line either. The American hit the back of Nyck de Vries' AlphaTauri on the second restart. Together, the drivers finished in the gravel pit. "We leave Melbourne frustrated that we couldn’t take advantage of our good pace and turn it into points," Dave Robinson, Head of Vehicle Performance, sulked afterwards.