Report: An Unfortunate Ending in Zandvoort for Alex

A race that saw Alex run as high as P7 ended in retirement after a late race collision.

Published

23 AUG 2026

Est. reading time

3 min

Alex Albon’s Dutch Grand Prix came to an unfortunate end at Zandvoort as a late collision with Carlos Sainz forced the Thai driver to retire with two laps remaining.

Rain was starting to fall on the grid before the race started, however the track was still dry enough for slicks.

Starting from P16 on soft tyres, Alex made a strong getaway and immediately gained a position by overtaking Esteban Ocon on the opening lap. However, the race was soon interrupted when Max Verstappen suffered a heavy crash at the end of Lap 1, bringing out the red flag. Verstappen was able to walk away from the incident unharmed.

Before the resumption, Alex switched to the hard tyres, allowing him to run for longer in the race before making his first pit stop. The Haas of Oliver Bearman stopped on track during the formation lap of the restart, causing the drivers to complete the third and final formation lap of the day. The race eventually got back underway from a standing start. Alex continued to make progress, moving up to P12 by Lap 6 following a penalty for Arvid Lindblad, before Franco Colapinto’s penalty on Lap 9 promoted him to P11.

As the opening stint progressed, Alex showed strong pace just ahead of Esteban Ocon, who was running on the soft tyres. With several drivers ahead making their pit stops, Alex climbed into the top 10 and was running as high as P7 by Lap 23 after stops for Pierre Gasly and Liam Lawson.

At the end of Lap 26, Alex made a pit stop to switch to another set of hard tyres and rejoined in P15. He continued to work his way back through the order as more drivers made their stops, reaching P11 by Lap 38 following pit stops for Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso, Gabriel Bortoleto and Arvid Lindblad.

Alex then focused on managing his tyres while running in cleaner air, although a series of blue flags saw him repeatedly give way to faster cars as they lapped him. By Lap 51, his tyres had reached the end of their life, prompting another pit stop for a fresh set of mediums. He rejoined in P16 and immediately showed strong pace, setting the fastest lap of the race on Lap 53 with a 1:17.147.

A brief Virtual Safety Car followed on Lap 55 after Ocon stopped on track, but the race quickly returned to green flag conditions. Alex continued to run in P16, with Colapinto closing in behind while he also began to gain on Sainz ahead.

However, on Lap 66, Alex and Carlos made contact at the first corner, with the collision damaging Alex’s car and allowing Colapinto through, whilst his teammate was handed a penalty. The damage proved too severe for Alex to continue, and he was forced to retire the car, bringing an unfortunate end to a race in which he had shown strong pace and made significant progress through the field.

“In clean air the car felt good today, not far off the midfield pace, so there are positives to take. The moment with Carlos was just one of those racing incidents – we were going for the same corner and he locked up. It's not how we wanted to end the weekend, and not what the team needs, but it is what it is and we'll discuss together as we always do.”

“We need to review our strategy today as we were fighting Fernando and he finished ahead – I think we pitted too early on the first stop, reacting to a potential undercut rather than running our own race. That left us catching a lot of blue flags and stuck in dirty air, which made my second stint messy. We'll review everything as a team and look forward to a cleaner weekend in Monza.”