Albon questions Perez’s ‘optimistic’ overtake attempt

Alexander Albon has labelled Sergio Perez’s overtake effort towards the end of the Singapore Grand Prix as an "optimistic move".

Albon was running in eighth place in the closing stages having overcome a lack of track time throughout practice having suffered a power unit issue that limited his running, just behind Liam Lawson and ahead of Perez.

With Lawson slow ahead at Turn 13, Perez tried to lunge up the inside of Albon, barging past the Williams, forcing the Thai driver to stop and recover, dropping him outside of the points.

Perez was handed a five-second time penalty and one penalty point for the move by stewards, although this did not alter his finishing position of eighth having been 11 seconds ahead of Lawson at the flag.

Albon went onto finish 11th, less than a second behind Haas's Kevin Magnussen and felt Perez was rather opportunistic with his move.

Albon questions Perez

"It should have been P8, I’m pretty sure," Albon explained to media post race.

"Maybe I could’ve done something differently, obviously, in the car, you have a view, but maybe it’s different outside.

"We were running in a good position, I had a great strategy. We did expect a Safety Car to come around that period and we saved a Medium tyre for that situation.

"It paid dividends in the race. It was coming to us, we had a really good race coming through the pack and getting up to Liam, I needed a couple more laps to get past him most likely.

"But then I had contact with Checo, and that was me out of the race. It was an optimistic move.

"Through my rearview mirrors, it was an optimistic move.

"He almost T-boned me into Turn 13 and I got stuck and couldn’t get out. I had to reverse, facing the wall. That’s it really."