Albon blames "silly error" for practice crash

The Toro Rosso driver lost control of his car at the start of FP2 when he touched the grass at the exit of the final corner as he prepared to start his first flying lap of the session.

Albon spun and his STR14 impacted heavily against the tyre barriers, causing heavy damage to the left side of the car.

The Thai driver finished at the bottom of the charts without a time set.

Asked by Motorsport.com what had happened, Albon said: "Just a misjudgement really. Of course you always swing into the corner, so it's not always easy to find the limit, but of course you want to be as wide as possible for the corner and I misjudged it.

"The front didn't go into the grass, so I had the feeling like I was fine. I didn't feel the front drop, so the rear dropped, really.

"Of course the weather didn't help because it was raining and it was very slippery. Just a silly error, to be honest."

Albon conceded the lack of track time in wet conditions was not ideal given qualifying could be hit by rain.

"I mean, we'll see, because tomorrow is supposed to rain. If it's raining it's obviously is not good. If it's dry obviously it's not too bad.

"Damage-wise obviously there's quite a lot of damage but it doesn't seem to be important. In terms of running everyone was restricted so we are not far behind. I guess we'll continue our plan."

The Toro Rosso driver was 14th quickest in the morning session, but felt the team had made significant progress with its car in the afternoon despite the lack of running.

"We were struggling for pace in general, but we made a really big step in FP2. Even if I crashed the pace was very strong, so it was a bit of a shame.

"We made some good steps and at least we got a lot of data. But we made some good steps. We still need to do some work to be ready for the heat."