Alexander Albon received a bitter penalty in the Miami sprint: James Vowles explains the background and does not absolve the team itself of blame
Alexander Albon almost had a perfect weekend in Miami – but only almost. In addition to finishing fifth in Sunday’s race, the Williams driver also drove to a fantastic fourth place in the sprint, but this was subsequently disallowed.
The stewards imposed a five-second penalty on the Thai driver, which dropped him back to eleventh place due to the neutralized finish. The reason: Albon had exceeded the minimum time in three sections at the start of the safety car period following Fernando Alonso’s accident.
In a video on the team’s website, team boss James Vowles now explains the background to the penalty and how it came about. When the safety car came out, Albon was on the long straight just before turn 17. He had George Russell’s Mercedes right behind him. “George was very, very fast and was pushing Alex hard,” said Vowles.
For this reason, Albon felt that there was a high risk of his rival crashing into the back of his car if he braked too abruptly for the safety car. “So he decided against it,” says Vowles. “Instead, he braked progressively and carried his speed into the corner to be safer in that situation.”
Delta not seen on the steering wheel
But why was he still going too fast after that? “When he left the corner – i.e. when he was driving through the S-curves – the steering wheel was turned all the way, so he couldn’t see the delta. He was traveling at a reduced speed at that point, but overall about two seconds too fast compared to the prescribed delta time,” said Vowles.
Explanation: The car’s system has a kind of programmed lap stored in it that specifies exactly where you should be at what time and at what speed. “He violated that by two seconds,” said the Englishman. ‘He wanted to do what he thought was safe. When he was on the straight, he could see the delta clearly again and drove there in full compliance with the rules,’ emphasized Vowles, but he did not absolve the team itself of blame.
Team could have warned Albon
“When we saw that the delta was negative coming out of the corner – and we had the telemetry data – we could have warned Alex. But we didn’t,” he admits.
“It’s difficult, we only have about a second to react, but still: it’s our mistake as a team. From Alex’s point of view, the braking maneuver was completely understandable, but we probably should have braked the car even harder at the apex.”
The FIA also acknowledged the circumstances and showed some leniency. However, this only meant that Albon did not receive any penalty points for his infringement – he still received the time penalty. “The rules are what they are, and we lost five points as a result,” Vowles laments.
