Unheard radio reveals Williams talks with Alex Albon in unusual air box incident

Alex Albon sits in the garage during qualifying for the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Team radio footage from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix has revealed how Williams got Alex Albon to deal with the team leaving his airbox attached.

Albon was unable to complete his final lap of Q3, due to running out of time after having to stop in the pitlane exit after his Williams team left his cooling fan from the garage attached to his airbox.

Alex Albon on Williams team radio: ‘Where is it?’

Albon was instructed to pull to the side of the track after his team copped the mistake, with a mechanic fortunate to avoid injury as Albon left the garage after getting the all-clear to pull out into the pit lane.

Unfortunately for Williams, his bright fluorescent yellow cooling fan had been left attached in the car, meaning the issue had to be dealt with by Albon – having left the pit lane, his mechanics couldn’t come to his aid.

Albon clumsily managed to extricate the fan from above his head, tossing it as gently as he could out to the side of the track for a marshal to retrieve.

“The Williams still has the airbox fan in,” an eagle-eye Oscar Piastri reported as the McLaren driver drove out on track ahead of Albon.

“Alright, stop. Pull to the side, pull to the side,” was the message from the Williams garage to Albon.

Garage: “Yeah, we have an issue with the cooling. We’re going to have to stop.

Alex Albon: “Where is it?”

G: “Above you.”

AA: “Can I grab it? Give it to a marshal?”

G: “OK, you can throw it to the marshal, but we don’t want him to touch the car.”

G: “Alex, just push it off the car. Don’t let the marshal touch the car. Just push it off the car. Right now, carry on, thank you.”

Unfortuantely for Albon, he wasn’t able to make it around to the start/finish line on time to complete his final flying lap.

The incident attracted the attention of the stewards for an unsafe release of the car onto the track, earning Williams a 5000 euro fine.

In outlining the facts, the stewards warned the situation could have been dealt with more harshly.

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

“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.”

More on Williams and F1 2024

Claire Williams exclusive: How Williams dream turned into a nightmare before forced sale

Revealed: Six other Williams F1 driver hires as unexpected as Carlos Sainz

Williams’ team boss James Vowles took to team radio to apologise for the mistake, saying: “Alex, you drove spectacularly through qualifying. Well done for that.

“I’m sorry for that incident. We’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen again. We need to understand in that rush why we could even do that. But from your perspective, you can be proud of what you achieved. Well done.”

Albon refused to criticise his team for the error, which ended up being largely inconsequential as he qualified 10th, saying: “Everyone’s trying their best. We made a mistake.”

Due to the long straights, drivers qualifying at the Baku street circuit attempt to get a good tow from their competitors in order to help them set a faster lap.

Williams, in its hurry to get Albon out of the garage to take advantage of the slipstream, simply forgot to remove the air box.

“There was a rush to get the slipstream in Q3 like there always is around here,” Albon explained to F1.com after the incident.

“We just missed out. Obviously, the fan got left in.

“I’m sure everyone’s going to be kicking themselves for it, but you know, it happens. And I think we’ve normally been pretty on it with these kinds of things.”

Read Next: Mercedes W15 fears raised as Toto Wolff concedes ‘not many good ones left’