Alex Albon explains ‘you don’t listen to me’ radio outburst at Williams

Alex Albon has clarified his mid-race radio outburst at Williams during the F1 Canadian Grand Prix.

Williams’ strategy calls appeared to frustrate Albon during Sunday’s race in Montreal, with the British-born Thai saying over team radio: “I don’t know why you don’t listen to me”.

The decision to pit a few laps later also drew annoyance from Albon, who tumbled down the order during a frustrating race that ended when a power unit failure forced him to retire on Lap 46.

However, Albon claimed the way his messages were broadcast on TV did not tell the whole story.

"I feel like they strategically played my radio messages," Albon said.

"I was saying it every single lap that this was not the right thing to do, but they wait until certain moments to post it.”

He went on to defend Williams’ strategy so far this season.

"Honestly this year we've been really good with strategy, I feel like we've always made the right calls,” Albon added.

"In mixed conditions, dry conditions, think about Imola, making the one-stop work, and situations like Melbourne or Miami where we make the right calls on different tyres.

"So as a team I think we're very strong at that. This time we were stuck, we wanted to make the one-stop work, likely it was just eagerness to try and win the positions back that we lost at the start.

"In some ways we had pace so we thought we could make the one-stop work and offset the deg with just having a quicker car than the Alpines, for example, who were holding everyone up.

"But graining is king around here and when you grain, you can't offset the pace. The graining initiated much later in the race than it did in FP2 so you thought you could extend but actually once the graining starts, you've got to box.”

Williams team principal James Vowles told Sky Sports F1: "Once we missed that first opportunity with Alex you have to go longer and that's the thing he can't see.

“He just feels terrible out there, being overtaken left, right and centre.”

Williams rue ‘missed opportunity’ 

Carlos Sainz recovered from being impeded in qualifying to score a point in 10th place thanks to Lando Norris’s late retirement, but both Williams drivers came away from the weekend feeling like it was a missed opportunity. 

“We missed an opportunity this weekend,” Albon said. “I think we’ve been quick, we missed out in qualifying, we need to get on top of the tyres, need to understand the car with the wind sensitivity still playing a little bit this weekend.

“The car was really strong in the race, easy top 10 and it’s frustrating to miss out.”

Sainz said: “If you had told me yesterday after starting 16th that we would get a point, I would be quite proud and happy. But the reality is that I'm not.

“It's not the first race that happens to us that we don't manage to get everything under control on Friday. 

“We have to learn better because it's a few races in a row now that we cannot race on Sunday and it makes our Sunday a bit tricky.”