Albon says “rush to get tow” behind Williams’ airbox fan blunder

Alex Albon escaped punishment but Williams was hit with a €5000 fine for failing to remove an airbox fan towards the end of Formula 1 qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The Anglo-Thai driver left the Williams garage with the fan still lodged in the intake above his head, forcing him to pull over at the pit exit in an effort to remove it.

This prompted a discussion on what to do to remove it without invoking the stewards’ wrath too much, and the team directed Albon to remove the fan himself and effectively throw it out of the car, avoiding any contact with the trackside marshals.

Williams were ultimately fined with Albon’s actions deemed the “least worst option” as his decision to dump the fan himself meant yellow flags were not then required.

“The general expectation when released in an unsafe condition is to simply stop at the next safe location,” the stewards’ verdict read.

“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 been 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’.”

According to Albon, it was an oversight as Williams wanted to get on track and benefit from a draft along the flat-out straight along Neftchilar Avenue, a tow he reckoned was more powerful than at Monza.

“[It was] a bit of a rush to get the tow, a bit like Monza. I actually think this track’s even better with the tow than Monza, because it’s a low-speed exit and you don’t lose as much in the dirty area,” Albon reflected.

“We were targeting close gaps, keen on the garage pull away to get going, and obviously we left a fan on the car. Frustrating. Better to happen in Q3 than in Q1 and Q2.

“Obviously it was a bit of a mistake, we’ll have a look and review it. But it happens, I’m not kicking the team. I feel like sometimes these things can happen and we’ve just got to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Albon expected to be called to the stewards’ office but hoped that he would be able to retain 10th on the grid for Sunday’s race, citing that he hoped Williams had followed the procedure correctly.

Alex Albon, Williams FW46

Photo by: Dom Romney / Motorsport Images

He explained that he did not feel any anger towards his team for the slip-up, instead stating that he was fully focused on getting going again – but ultimately missed the chequered flag and could not set a final Q3 time.

“There’s a regulation that marshals can’t touch the car. I’m not sure about throwing a fan out of the car – what’s the regulation around that? I think on paper it’s OK – a tear-off is legal, why not a fan?

“I’m hoping I can keep P10 tomorrow – I imagine I’ll get called to the stewards. I think it’s best left for them.

“At that point, I’m not angry. I just want to see if we can get going again. That’s the only thing on my mind.

“We had a chat around it. We spoke around throwing the fan, making sure the marshal didn’t touch me or the tan of the car and then try to get going again. I missed the flag by three seconds, so we almost got it.”

Asked if he would have been able to beat team-mate Franco Colapinto to ninth without the incident, Albon replied: “With the perfect lap, yeah [Colapinto was beatable]. To be honest with you, we never really got the tyres working. I really struggled to get the tyres to switch on.

“They switched on much better in FP3 than they did in qualifying. Weirdly, on the out lap that I had all the ice down my back [from the fan], the tyres were actually in a much better position! So we need to figure out why that is.”