Albon: 'Five-second penalty hurts me more than Perez'

Albon over penalties

At the Singapore Grand Prix, Perez misjudged a duel with Albon, causing contact. For the British Thai himself, the grapes were sour: he lost a lot of time. Perez was able to continue his way without major time loss, although he received a five-second penalty. Albon thinks something of that.

"For example with Checo in Singapore, he can take that risk because there's a very good chance he can pull that five seconds away from me so it puts drivers in a position where the car behind can be a bit more aggressive than the car in front. If I defend and I make a mistake and I lose, I get a five-second penalty. More often than not, I'm going to lose two or three positions because I'm holding up a train."

He also cites another example. "It's more the fact that the car that's quicker tends to be able to get away with these incidents quite often position free. What I mean by that is, for example if I take my Monza race, I was holding off Lando the whole race but if he just cut the chicane for one of them laps and overtook me and then pulled away he would have got a five-second penalty but would have pulled away and had nothing done to him."

When is which penalty appropriate?

So does Albon have an immediate solution? "Disqualification," he jokes with a big smile on his face. "I do know as drivers, we want consistency but there is a genuine feeling that it is very hard to be consistent in these positions and I understand and I do sympathise with the FIA that it's not that easy to do. I don't have an answer but I will if I have more time to think."