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Mild-mannered Alex Albon is developing a reputation for some of Formula 1's bluntest radio messages whenever he takes issue with his Williams team's strategic choices.
This occurred again in the Canadian Grand Prix, although the situation was made to look more fractious than it was.
Questioning "I don't know why you don't listen to me", then taking issue with a call to pit a few laps later, were attention-grabbing radio messages to be broadcast on the international feed as Albon slipped down the midfield order towards the end of his first stint in Montreal.
"I feel like they strategically played my radio messages," Albon half-joked afterwards.
"I was saying it every single lap that this was not the right thing to do, but they wait until certain moments to post it."
As is often the way with brief radio snippets, a lack of context made this seem more fractious than it was. Albon is certainly becoming more vocal with his frustrations now that Williams has more to play for as its revival continues - but it is usually justified.
What was more strange than the choice of world feed direction in playing those messages - which is par for the course and it is for the various commentators to apply the necessary context to explain them - is how Williams team boss James Vowles summarised it during Sky Sports F1's coverage.
"Once we missed that first opportunity with Alex you have to go longer and that's the thing he can't see," said Vowles. "He just feels terrible out there, being overtaken left, right and centre."
But Albon could see that. In fact, his frustration played out in three parts.
He anticipated some pitstops were coming for other medium-tyre runners and wanted to get ahead of that, but Williams kept him out. That decision left him vulnerable as other medium-shod cars stopped first, and he started to get caught by those on the hard, so Albon knew he was losing ground.
Then when Williams wanted to finally pull the trigger and stop, it was Albon who quickly insisted, "No, don't box now, don't box now!" because, in his words, "We can't do all that then box".
Albon knew perfectly well that missing the optimal window to stop, and then be on the attack, meant he was forced to stay out and take his lumps. But Williams seemingly trying to stick to its original plan would have left him in no-man's land: behind the cars that did stop earlier, without enough of a tyre offset to regain the ground, and with so far to go that another pitstop would be necessary.
As it was, Albon rejoined last. That was inevitable after all the time lost sliding around on grip-less old mediums. "That was our race over," Albon lamented after. And there was very little to play for even before an engine problem worsened and caused his retirement.
Post-race, though, Albon didn't throw his team under the bus. This is, again, quite common; blunt and frustrated radio messages seem worse in the moment, especially if the intent behind them and the command the driver has of what's going on isn't made clear.
When a driver calms down and crucially is able to elaborate themselves, their motivations become more obvious. And Albon said it was "not all on the team, not at all".
"Honestly this year we've been really good with strategy, I feel like we've always made the right calls," Albon said when asked by The Race if it was another case of strategic flat-footedness frustrating him.
"In mixed conditions, dry conditions, think about Imola, making the one-stop work, and situations like Melbourne or Miami where we make the right calls on different tyres.
"So as a team I think we're very strong at that. This time we were stuck, we wanted to make the one-stop work, likely it was just eagerness to try and win the positions back that we lost at the start.
"In some ways we had pace so we thought we could make the one-stop work and offset the deg with just having a quicker car than the Alpines, for example, who were holding everyone up.
"But graining is king around here and when you grain, you can't offset the pace. The graining initiated much later in the race than it did in FP2 so you thought you could extend but actually once the graining starts, you've got to box."
Perhaps part of the reason Albon was more gracious to his team is that he knew "my lap one wasn't good", and he had caused problems for himself dropping behind Franco Colapinto then getting bullied off the road optimistically trying to repass him on the outside in the middle of the lap.
"I need to do a better job," Albon admitted.
Though the retirement cost Albon nothing, that was another concern. Albon said it was a result of being in a multi-car train and struggling to feed the cooling systems with clean, cooler air.
As he noted, "it's not just going to be this race that happens", so it's something Williams needs to understand. Especially as apparently “we had a couple of races where we got a little bit close but it bit us” here.
It meant multiple factors combine to make for a far from perfect day for his side of the garage, with Albon no longer enjoying the kind of clean weekends he benefitted from earlier in the year. And that is a bigger disappointment than another strategic misstep.
"We missed an opportunity this weekend," he said. "I think we've been quick, we missed out in qualifying, we need to get on top of the tyres, need to understand the car with the wind sensitivity still playing a little bit this weekend.
"The car was really strong in the race, easy top 10 and it's frustrating to miss out."
