Kvyat slams ‘unprofessional’ Albon after race-ruining collision in Germany

AlphaTauri may be Red Bull's 'sister' team, but there was little family love on show in the Eifel Grand Prix, with Daniil Kvyat labelling Alex Albon ‘unprofessional’ after the pair’s contact on Lap 16 of the race.

Kvyat was running just ahead of Albon, who’d had to stop early after flat-spotting his tyres on Lap 1, when the Russian ran over the final chicane and rejoined the track. With his momentum lost, Kvyat was then passed by the Red Bull of Albon, only for the Thai driver to misjudge the gap when he moved across to take his line into the final corner, wiping off the front wing of Kvyat – who was left to struggle home P15 and last.

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“I didn’t understand his manoeuvre really,” said a frustrated Kvyat after the race. “What was he doing? I think it was quite unprofessional of him and poor judgement, so you wouldn’t expect that from a driver of his level, who’s been racing so long.

“But anyway, the race was pretty much ruined from then on. I had to do the whole lap very slow with the damaged front wing as a consequence. It went under my floor, damaged my whole floor, the brake cooling, and the race from there was really a struggle because the car was massively down on downforce, and I was just really hoping for rain or something really strange to happen.”

The touch with Kvyat wasn’t Albon’s only AlphaTauri-related battle of the race, meanwhile, with Albon then locking up and nearly colliding with Pierre Gasly on Lap 22, before complaining over team radio that he was being raced too hard by Red Bull’s sister team. But with Albon forced into retirement with a power unit issue two laps later – meaning he never served the five-second penalty he received for the Kvyat incident – the Red Bull driver was left to reflect on his untidy race at the Nurburgring.

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“Obviously Dany ran a bit wide in the chicane and it was a bit of a misjudgement on my side,” said Albon. “I don’t really know [what happened] but we went into the last corner and we touched.

“The pace in the car is good,” added Albon, who’d qualified an encouraging P5, “so it’s annoying to have a result like this now. But to be honest, on my side, I wasn’t really too happy with my race, just a few mistakes, and obviously the lock-up [on Lap 1] compromised us a lot.”