Albers confused by penalty

Albers and Monteiro collided on the main straight when the Portuguese was squeezed against the barriers.

The two cars made contact and Monteiro lost his front wing. Albers was then given a drive-through penalty which dropped him to the bottom of the field.

"It was just a shame to get a drive-through penalty," said Albers, who went on to finish in 12th place.

"I have no clue why, to be honest, because from my point of view, my front wing was ahead and I had position. But everyone has their own opinion of that, so we'll leave that alone for now.

"I have to say I'm quite happy with our result today because my car struggled quite badly at the beginning of the weekend and ended up being very good."

Monteiro, who finished in 15th place, branded the incident as "unnecessary".

"Unfortunately, we had that unnecessary incident at the start, and I lost a lot of time on the ensuing pitstop," said Monteiro. "I had to make up about 30 seconds and get past the Super Aguris, so my race was effectively shot right there.

"I was very happy with the car all weekend, and I have to thank my team of engineers and mechanics for that. Things didn't turn out as well as we would have liked but on the positive side we were quick, so that's a good sign for the future."