Williams' bizarre failure to remove airbox fan from Alex Albon’s car explained

Alex Albon says a “rush to get the tow” in qualifying at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was why an airbox fan was not removed from his Williams F1 car.

There was a bizarre blunder early on in Q3 as Albon exited the pits but was forced to pull to the side of the track in order to remove a cooling airbox which had mistakenly been left on his car.

Albon was seen pulling the fan off his car and throwing it to the side of the track. He qualified 10th for Sunday’s race in Baku but faces an anxious wait to see if he will lose the position after being summoned to see the stewards.

[It was] a bit of a rush to get the tow, a bit like Monza,” Albon explained. 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.

“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.”

Explaining the incident, Williams team principal James Vowles told SiriusXM: “The main reason behind it is the turnaround was compressed into a very short space of time. Around about 40 seconds or so, which is shorter than it normally would be.

“You could see everyone jostling for position in the pit lane. Alex was very polite, and it was very good of him to do so, but he braked and just let everyone past.

“As soon as he did that we were on the back foot with timing. What it meant is that we created a pressure situation, which normally the crew deal very well week-in and week-out.

“On this particular occasion, for reasons I need to go through, we installed a permanent fan rather than holding a temporary fan, because that’s the real solution behind it. You never install anything permanent in 40 seconds, you do if it’s five minutes.

“As a result of that, one of the checks in place wasn’t completed and the car left without that. Now even then, we could have caught it. So two sort of failings we’ve got to go through.

“Why did we install permanent when we should have installed perhaps something that was temporary and could we have caught it earlier? Because even then he would have got a lap in.

“That’s the negative behind it. The bit that I love with where we are here is there’s no blame. We win together, we lose together. It’s as simple as that. We will come back and make sure we don’t repeat that fault again and move on.”