Alonso slams driver quality after Albon clash

Fernando Alonso says “the quality of the drivers in the lower third of the grid is very low” after clashing with Alex Albon at the start of the United States Grand Prix.

Albon tried to pass Alonso down the inside into the Turn 11 hairpin on the opening lap, but with a Haas to Alonso’s outside the Williams was squeezed onto the apex curb. Albon damaged the left hand side of Alonso’s floor with the contact, and the double world champion claims such an incident is a reflection of the standards of driver fighting nearer the back of the field.

“I've been hit by Alex in Turn 11,” Alonso said. “That was the biggest damage. I think we lost like half a second or more. The car is destroyed. I saw it in parc ferme. Half of the floor is not there. I don't know how we kept on going and how we were semi-competitive. I imagine if the car was in one piece, probably today the points were a possibility. A strong possibility because we were running P12 with half a car.

“One side of the floor was there and one side not. I think that was quite impressive what the car was able to do, so it remains a little bit of curiosity with a full car performance, what we could have done. Probably P9, P10 points on merit today was possible.

“I think when you start at the back there is this risk always. I think the quality of the drivers in the lower third of the grid is very low. As we saw today with Alex, I think we need to improve the car and start a bit higher up.”

Before hearing of Alonso’s comments, Albon admitted he was expecting to hear his thoughts but felt he had an action-packed race from that point on.

“You ever watch Goodwood and you ever see the Mustang and the Mini, you know that race? It's the same thing,” Albon said. “Yeah, it was fun though. It's always fun to race Fernando. He's strong but he's fair always. Maybe he thought I was a bit over the edge, I don't know. I'm sure I'll find out soon!

“I had a good amount of fun, I think. We pitted very early on the final set and we had a long run on the hards. It would have been OK but when we came out we were just getting blue flags. So we lost maybe 10 or 12 seconds of race time on the blue flags.

“I thought Fernando, Lance [Stroll], Carlos [Sainz] would not be in my race. Suddenly they were in my race with a few laps to go. So I tried to hold off the Astons because I knew Carlos was on a pressure set. And I tried to help him have a chance on the Astons but then in the end they got through.”