F1 | Albon case: Williams betrayed by rush to find a slipstream

Alex Albon has attributed Williams’ failure to remove the airbox fan to a “rush to find a tow” at the end of Q3 at the Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The British-Thai driver left the Williams garage with the fan still stuck in the air intake above his head, forcing him to pull over to the pit exit in an attempt to remove it.

The team then asked Albon to remove the fan himself and throw it out of the car, avoiding contact with the track marshals.

According to Albon, it was an oversight, as Williams wanted to enter the track and benefit from a slipstream along the main straight of the Azerbaijan street circuit. A tow that according to him is more powerful than what can be enjoyed at Monza Monza.

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

“Our goal was to stay close, so in our rush to leave the garage we left the fan on the car. It’s frustrating, but better for it to happen in Q3 than in Q1 or Q2.”

“Obviously it was a bit of a mistake, we’ll look at it again and again. But it happens, I don’t want to criticize the team. I feel like sometimes these things can happen and we just have to make sure they don’t happen again.”

Albon had expected to be summoned by the stewards’ office but is hopeful he can retain his 10th place on the grid for Sunday’s race, saying he hoped Williams had followed the procedure correctly.

He explained that he felt no anger towards his team for the mistake made, saying instead that he was fully focused on the possibility of restarting, even if in the end when he succeeded it was already too late to avoid the checkered flag.

“The rules say the marshals can’t touch the car. I’m not sure how you can throw a fan out of the car – what are the rules? I think on paper it’s fine – a tear-off is legal, why not a fan?”

“I hope I can maintain P10 tomorrow, but I guess I’ll be reported to the stewards. I think it’s best to leave it to them. I wasn’t angry at that point. I just wanted to see if we could get going again. That’s all I had in mind.”

“We had a chat. We talked about throwing the fan, made sure the marshal didn’t touch me or the car and then we tried to get going again. I missed the flag by three seconds, so we almost did it.”

Without this setback, Albon said he could have maintained ninth place, ahead of new teammate Franco Colapinto, the great revelation of these qualifying sessions, although he admitted he had never managed to put the tyres in the same window as in FP3.

“With a perfect lap, yes, Colapinto was beatable. To be honest, we never managed to get the tires to work. I really struggled to get the tires to light up.”

“In FP3 they lit up much better than in qualifying. Strangely, on the out-lap I did with ice on my back (because of the fan), the tyres were in a better position! So we need to understand why.”