Williams cops $8,200 fine for bizarre Albon blunder, Gasly excluded

Albon was unable to start a final flying lap despite reaching Qualifying 3 in Baku after having to stop to clear a fan from his car.

The Williams driver had exited the lane with a modified, and brightly coloured, leaf blower still affixed to the airbox.

Used to cool the car while not moving, the object should have been removed prior to his exit from the garage.

It was not, and forced Albon to stop in pit exit and remove the offending item himself – yanking it from above his head before heaving it over the side of the halo.

“The car was released from the garage with the engine cooling fan still attached,” officials noted in their summary.

“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.”

Albon will line up 10th on the grid for the race, one spot back from his impressive new team-mate, Franco Colapinto.

Williams wasn’t the only team in hot water, with Alpine also called to the stewards after Pierre Gasly’s car was deemed to have breached technical rules.

It was found the Frenchman’s car had exceeded the permitted 100Kg/h fuel mass flow during his final lap in Qualifying 2.

While it actually resulted in a slower lap time, as a technical breach, Gasly was excluded from the session – though was granted permission to start the race.

Elsewhere, George Russell was reprimanded for failing to slow sufficiently under a yellow flag after Carlos Sainz took to the run-off at Turn 2 as the Mercedes driver was negotiating the corner.