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Albon handed five-place penalty for de Vries clash

Alexander Albon has been given a five-place penalty for causing a pitlane crash with McLaren Formula 1 junior Nyck de Vries while leading the F2 Monaco feature race. 

Alexander Albon, DAMS

Alexander Albon, DAMS

Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Nyck De Vries, PREMA Racing
Alexander Albon, DAMS
Nyck De Vries, PREMA Racing
Nyck De Vries, PREMA Racing
Alexander Albon, DAMS
Alexander Albon, DAMS, leads Nyck De Vries, PREMA Racing and the rest of the field at the start of the race
Lando Norris, Carlin, with a broken front wing
Lando Norris, Carlin
Ralph Boschung, MP Motorsport

On lap 13, during a safety car period caused when Lando Norris nerfed Ralph Boschung into the barriers at Anthony Noghes, de Vries committed to pitting and took a shallow line, while DAMS driver Albon stayed wide.

Diving into the pits late, Albon cut across the front-left of de Vries’ car, sending him into a spin and causing damage to the Prema machine that would cause the Dutchman's retirement. 

“As we got to Rascasse, Alex stayed quite wide, so I was thinking he wasn’t going to box,” said de Vries, who is now sixth in the points.

“I did a tighter line and went for pit entry, and he decided to come in anyways, and that’s my part of the story and the stewards decided to give him a five-place penalty for tomorrow. I guess that was clear enough.”

When asked if Albon deserved the penalty, de Vries simply said: “Yes.”

Albon blamed the lack of a pit entry line at Monaco for the coming together. 

“There was confusion really. In Monaco there’s no pit entry line," he said. "Two drivers, Nyck and I, we’ve obviously been caught out.

“I did my line, the one I normally do. Nyck did his line, he thought I’d reacted to his pit entry but it was more just the entry is tight and I did my line. He’d already committed.

“I don’t want to blame anyone, I just want to forget about it.”

Norris "not proud" of Boschung move

Norris said that he is “not proud” of his move which took Boschung out of the race and caused the safety car period and the subsequent drama between Albon and de Vries.

Norris hit Boschung twice on lap 12, once at the Loews hairpin and once at Anthony Noghes after the Carlin driver dived to the inside and hit his rival.

“I got fairly alongside, my front wheel was halfway alongside his car,” said Norris of the clash. “He obviously didn’t see me and I had to back out or it would have been a much bigger crash.

“I need to apologise to Ralph. I don’t want to wipe anyone out as that makes me look bad. In no way am I proud of what I did.”

Boschung, whose MP Motorsport teammate Roberto Merhi took third, added: “Just looking at Merhi walking in with a trophy, and he was behind me [in the race at the time of the crash], I think that the podium was mine today and that’s tough.

"The first hit I could understand but the second one, he just lunged inside and I had nowhere to go.”

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