Bizarre Alex Albon incident triggers Williams fine at Azerbaijan GP

Alex Albon made it through into the top 10 in Azerbaijan, but a critical Williams error left him unable to complete a final flying lap.

Albon has qualified in 10th place for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, having performed heroics through the first two parts of qualifying, but missed out on his final opportunity as Williams left a fan attached to his car – resulting in a €5,000 fine.

Williams left a cooling fan attached to Alex Albon’s car

Emerging with just over two minutes to go to attack his final flying lap in Q3, Albon was forced to pull over to the side of the track at the pit exit as he realised a large bright-yellow Komatsu cooling fan had been left attached to the airbox inlet above his head.

Used to cool the car in the garage, the car had been released into the pitlane without being removed by a mechanic, with Albon forced to stop at the side of the track in a bid to remove it himself.

With the car on track outside the pitlane, the Williams mechanics couldn’t go to help him and they were left watching on with an agonising wait to see whether Albon could extricate the fan.

Reaching over his head but unable to turn around due to being strapped tightly into his cockpit, Albon managed to get the fan out and extended it outside of his cockpit in an attempt to get a marshal to grab it.

With no one taking the part from him, Albon dropped the fan to the ground and drove off, scattering errant dry ice everywhere as he got back up to speed. Unfortunately for the British-Thai racer, he hadn’t done it quickly enough to make it on time to start his final flying lap and thus had to settle for 10th place.

The unsafe release of the car has been noted by the stewards and will be investigated following the session, meaning a risk to Albon’s starting position if punishment is required for Williams.

Albon was outqualified for the first time since the 2022 British Grand Prix, with Franco Colapinto underlining his strong start to life in F1 by finishing with the ninth-quickest time, three-tenths of a second quicker than Albon’s first flying lap.

Team boss James Vowles took to team radio after the qualifying session in order to apologise to Albon for the mistake, saying: “Alex, you drove spectacularly through qualifying. Well done for that.

“I’m sorry for that incident. We’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen again. We need to understand in that rush why we could even do that. But from your perspective, you can be proud of what you achieved. Well done.”

Responding to the apology, Albon showed no signs of annoyance as he said: “We’re going to fight tomorrow, everyone, today. Don’t stress. We can get points tomorrow.”

Writing in their verdict, the FIA said: “The car was released from the garage with the engine cooling fan still attached.

“The car was stopped at the first opportunity, at the pit exit, and subsequently the driver removed the fan and threw it overboard where it was subsequently retrieved by a marshal.

“Albon the drove away and entered the pits without setting an additional time. The general expectation when released in an unsafe condition is to simply stop at the next safe location.

“Throwing parts overboard, requiring a marshal to retrieve them is not normal. However, in this case the actions of the team and driver prevented the qualifying runs of any other driver from being affected, as a yellow flag would have had to be shown if the car had remained where it was, or had driven to a run-off, and in this unique case, throwing the part overboard avoided the yellow flag.

“As was discussed in the hearing, this turns out to be “least worst option.” Had any of these actions affected other competitors, or created a further unsafe situation the Stewards would have taken further action.

“However, in this case we impose the usual penalty for a release in an unsafe condition of €5,000.”

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