Albon dismisses Williams tension after Sainz pays for Dutch GP peace breakfast

Alex Albon has dismissed suggestions of lasting tension with Williams team-mate Carlos Sainz following their collision at the Dutch Grand Prix, revealing the pair resolved the matter over a Monday morning breakfast in Monaco — with Sainz footing the bill.

Sainz accepted full responsibility for the intra-team incident at Zandvoort, which earned him a 10-second penalty. Defending on old hard tyres into Turn 1, the Spaniard hit a bump on the inside line, locked up and slid into Albon. The contact damaged Albon’s floor and forced him to retire, while Sainz salvaged a 16th-place finish.

Speaking on The Fast And The Curious podcast, Albon was relaxed about the whole affair. “We grabbed breakfast on Monday. Carlos offered to pay. I allowed him to pay,” he said with a smile. “All chill. I think people like to make it out more than it really is, but at the same time, it was no Max and Daniel. For me, that was important.”

Albon referenced the infamous 2018 Baku collision between Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo as the benchmark for intra-team hostility — a bar he was keen to stress the Williams pair had not come close to reaching. He also noted the media’s appetite for conflict in the immediate aftermath. “You can tell in the media pen as soon as you go after the race, you feel like the interviewer is licking their lips, they’re getting so excited. So you just have to kind of shoulder it and be like, ‘No, we’re not going to go down that road.’”

Albon added a lighter touch when asked whether the incident entitled him to a free hit on Sainz in return. “I think that’s a good one. I’m not sure the team would agree with this,” he laughed, before catching himself: “I shouldn’t say this because it’s going to write its own script.”

The breakfast itself, held in Monaco, provided its own entertainment. Albon described the menu in detail — scrambled eggs with caviar for his partner Lily, avocado toast for himself, and protein pancakes shared with Sainz — before delivering a pointed verdict on his team-mate’s culinary self-belief. “Carlos is way too confident about his pancake game. He has a confidence that I’ve never seen anyone have around pancakes. The way he talks about how he makes pancakes, you’d think he’s Gordon Ramsay’s coach.”

With both drivers clearly on good terms, Williams will be hoping the goodwill translates into cleaner racing as the season continues.