Alex Albon could have traded Williams F1 car for Vespa in 'painfully slow' Monaco GP

Alex Albon has joked he could have swapped his Williams F1 car for his Vespa in the Monaco Grand Prix because the race was run at such a slow pace.

Albon claimed his and Williams’ first points of the season with a strong drive to ninth place behind Yuki Tsunoda. Despite the positive result, he was left frustrated to have spent 78 laps stuck behind the RB driver.

The British-born Thai racer said it was “annoying” how slowly Tsunoda - and much of the field - were driving.

"It's annoying because he had so much pace... I'm happy to manage [the pace] but we don't need to manage this much," Albon said.

”He was managing so much, I was like, I could get out and drive my Vespa around here. It was so slow. It's so painful.

"It's actually hard to stay focused when you're going that slowly because you're just not even near anything. You're not near any limits.

“He absolutely cleared off at the end of the race. I was like, we could have done this the whole time! But he decided not to do it…."

Albon added: “It was maybe a bit of a boring one. I wish I had a nicer race, a more fun race to say how we scored our first points.

“But I’ll take that. P9 is great for us. Puts us on the board, puts us in a positive momentum for the for the next few. Last year it took us a while to get some points and then we really started to hit our stride. So I don’t [see] why we can’t do that again.

“We’ve obviously chipped away at the car, got some weight out of the car, brought some small upgrades to the car and it’s paying off.”

Tsunoda, who explained he was simply respecting the strategy he had been asked to deliver by his team, admitted he did not enjoy limiting his pace.

"I have to always respect the strategy that we planned," Tsunoda said. "I had to sometimes slow down to make sure that the cars behind don't do any pitstop or make sure they couldn't undercut us.

"That was frustrating as a driver, especially when you know there's a lot of pace to come. But we have to stick to what the team says.

“It's not nice feeling, but we discussed it before the race and I am actually happy with what I've done and not be too greedy with the tyres."