Red Bull’s Alexander Albon believes a podium result was within reach at Imola prior to the spin that relegated him outside of the points.
Albon was running in traffic for much of the race, but a late Safety Car promoted him to fifth, behind Daniel Ricciardo and Charles Leclerc.
However, while being passed by Sergio Perez, Albon spun around and took the chequered flag in 15th place – last of the classified runners.
“I don’t know if it was a clip or just cold tyres at the same time as losing downforce,” Albon said. “It just went so quickly.
“Obviously we were the first car for, let’s say, the Soft tyres to come across, so it was always going to be difficult to stop them.”
Albon believes Red Bull could have benefitted from make a pit stop and switching to the Soft tyres for the last sprint to the finish after the Safety Car.
“In hindsight, we probably could have done something differently there and obviously boxed,” Albon said. “But yeah, it’s one of them things.
“We could have easily got a podium today but at the same time… not what we wanted.“
However, Albon believes his qualifying result was better for him last weekend, but has quickly shifted focus to the next race in Turkey.
“Qualifying was pretty good for me,” Albon said. “Looking at the race, it was difficult but we were following cars the whole race. Anyway, we’ll focus on Turkey.”
Albon’s team-mate Max Verstappen also failed to score points on Sunday after a tyre failure eliminated him from second place with 13 laps remaining in the grand prix.
