No penalty for Alexander Albon (Williams) despite driving with a loose wheel at Imola
Alex Albon felt that his loose wheel during the race at Imola "was safe enough" the stewards decided not to penalize him for driving to the pits, after a post-race investigation.
The Williams driver stopped on the eighth lap of the race while in 14th position at the start of the race on Sunday. But when he returned to the track, he slowed down after crossing the Tamburello chicane where he realized the extent of the problem. Albon then drove slowly to the pits to change tires and returned to the race one lap down.
He received a 10-second stop-and-go penalty for infringing article 34.14d of the F1 sporting regulations, which governs releasing cars in a dangerous condition during a race. This ended his race as he fell two laps behind and was retired from the race with 10 laps to go.
“I didn’t feel it when entering the pit lane, but as soon as I deactivated the speed limiter, there was a vibration and I could tell something was wrong,” Albon said after the race at Imola.
When I was turning in the corners, you could see if the tire was going to fall off. But it only moved to a certain point and stopped. I could see that it was pretty safe. There was only about 10 mm of movement on the tire.
An error that compromises Albon’s race.
Albon also stated in a press release that he understands why he received the penalty, although he escaped sanction for continuing with the loose wheel, which is usually a violation of Article 34.14.e of the F1 sporting regulations. But the Imola stewards accepted Albon’s explanation of the incident, which they believed was supported by onboard video footage.
« Even though he knew something was wrong with the car, it did not appear, from his position, to be a classic loose wheel not caught by the wheel nut, added the document from the stewards announcing the result of the second investigation into Albon’s actions. « He was given the green light by the team to leave the pits, and the team did not call him back because they did not know at that time that the wheel was loose. Instead, Albon heard a metallic scraping noise, reported that something was wrong, and carefully drove the car back to the pits. »
« The stewards agreed that this was done in a safe and appropriate manner, without affecting any other competitor and that the driver did not drive the car knowing it was in a dangerous condition. Williams have not yet explained what happened to Albon’s right front wheel during his first pit stop, the team’s sporting director Sven Smeets only stating in the same press release that Alex’s race was over after an issue during his first pit stop with the right front wheel.
Albon still completed an additional 43 laps after returning to the pits to get a properly fitted set of wheels.
