As the race began on Sunday, Pierre Gasly in the Alpine, positioned to Albon's right, made a slight move that triggered a chain reaction, resulting in Albon colliding with Yuki Tsunoda. Both drivers crashed, and this incident ended the race for both of them; fortunately, neither was harmed.

“We didn’t have the best launch, but that was really it,” Albon explained. “Everyone was fighting for position going into Turn 1; it’s a long straight, and it’s a battle for all of us. I don’t think I did anything wrong, and I don’t think anyone else did either. It just seems like bad luck.”

Albon noted that this was not the first time he faced such challenges: “It’s been a few races now where we’ve encountered incidents or bad timing.” After starting in ninth, Albon aimed for his first points since Baku, but instead, he ended up retiring early with his second DNF in three races, following a disappointing P16 finish in Austin.

Albon’s teammate Franco Colapinto also had a difficult day, which wasn’t helped by a poor qualifying result, as he exited in Q1. Starting in P16 on hard tires, it was always going to be a tough challenge to climb into the points. “Starting from P16 with a McLaren and a Red Bull behind me was always going to be tricky,” he admitted. “We did well to maximize our potential this weekend. The qualifying was tough; the car was not in a good state, and we struggled with rear grip.”

Colapinto explained how the car's balance affected his performance: “At this track, the rear overheats significantly, and after a slide in Turn 3, I had a snap in Turns 4, 5, and 6. It just snowballed for us in qualifying since the car wasn’t in the sweet spot. Today, we did our best to make the most of it.”

Finishing in 12th place, Colapinto was fortunate it wasn’t lower, as he later received a post-race time penalty for being involved in a collision with Liam Lawson. The two rookies were battling for position on fresh tires late in the race, both aiming to fight their way into the points.

After running side by side through several corners and forcing each other wide, the contact caused Lawson to drop down the order, with Colapinto deemed at fault and penalized. However, Colapinto had a different perspective on the incident.

“He was already behind me and hit my rear right in Turn 1. I think Liam braked quite late and pushed me off, then tried to cut back and hit my rear right with his front wing, so there was nothing I could do,” Colapinto explained afterwards. “We had a decent race overall. Overtaking was challenging, and there was a lot of overheating, which made it hard to manage. But overall, we did a good job… now we need to focus on Brazil and aim for some points there.”

Williams remains eighth in the constructors’ championship but is now just three points behind Alpine, who was once trailing them.