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Toro Rosso chose not to pit Alexander Albon for a second time during the British Grand Prix after a high voltage issue showed up in Honda's data.
The decision not to pit the Thai-British driver was made on the grounds of safety, which saw Albon complete the last 39 laps of the race on a set of medium tyres.
Albon was running in the points with only a handful of laps to go, but dropped out of the top ten due to the excessive tyre wear.
"Unfortunately, Alex dropped out of the points in the closing stages, as he was unable to make the second tyre stop that he needed," said Honda F1 technical director Toyuharu Tanabe.
"This was power unit-related, as the data showed a high voltage issue, so we told the team it was inadvisable to make a second stop on safety grounds. Of course, we will now analyse this issue very carefully.
"It wasn’t the best race for us, but for the fans it was another really exciting Grand Prix. We will now concentrate as usual on our development programme, as we head for another pair of back to back races."
Albon admits that missing out on points late on in the race made for a frustrating race, but is content with it being something that can happen at times.
"It wasn’t an easy race for me managing the tyres. When the safety car came out some drivers got lucky, others didn’t.
"We had an issue with the car where we couldn’t pit or touch the car, so we had to stay out while others around us pitted. It was a frustrating race, but that’s the way it goes sometimes."
Albon has not scored points since the Monaco Grand Prix, and currently sits 15th in the championship standings with seven points.
Grand Prix of Belgium
G. Zhou
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Replies (5)
Login to replycalle.itw
Posts: 8,527
He did the best he could in a hopeless situation. But that's some scary stuff.
f1fan0101
Posts: 1,804
No doubt, that is truly scary. Wasn't there one time Kimi was told not to touch the car a few years ago because it was live?
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Yup, and then there was that time Alo was or wasn't zapped during the 2015 winter testing.
Ram Samartha
Posts: 1,172
Albon had an otherwise pretty good race. He was looking relatively good against RIC and the HULK and the McLarens pretty much all race. They really should move GAS down and shift KVYAT over to RB. It would take the pressure off GAS and KVYAT would probably help push VER to even better things. He's not getting challenged by his teammate now so there's probably some tenths still there we're not seeing.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
I think Albon has good potential, but I hope they don't switch him into RB yet. As you say, move Kvyat up, and pit Gas vs Alb. If Alb comes out on top, he has had two years to mature in the sport, and could be ready for a promotion.