Albon baffled by Mexico track limits penalty

Williams' Alex Albon was left baffled by his track limits penalty in Mexico City Grand Prix qualifying that cost him a place in the pole position shootout.

Albon put in a late effort to improve into the top ten in the closing stages of Q2, but the stewards deleted his time due to track limits at Turn 2 and cutting across the inside kerb.

Instead of a top 10 slot, the Thai racer will start 14th having impressed with strong pace throughout practice, including finishing second to Max Verstappen by less than a tenth in the final 60 minutes of practice.

But Albon was not sure that he should have been pinged for track limits - and felt the stewards should have shown more leniency.

Albon: I lost a lot of grip

"I don't think it was off, I spoke to Dave Redding (Williams Team Manager) and he showed me an external view of the shot of me at Turn 2, and my rear tyres still look like they're on the white line," Albon told media including RacingNews365.

"Maybe I'm wrong and I'd obviously like to be wrong because it would make me less frustrated, but I hope in a weird way I did have track limits, but from what I saw I didn't.

"It should be as soon as you miss the bollard, you're legal. But the snapshot they had of me was whilst my car was halfway in the air.

"Technically, I didn't exceed track limits because my four wheels are off the ground, but even the snapshot they have is my rear tyre on the white part of the kerb, so you can't even tell what is the white line or what is the kerb.

"I don't know how they can make a decision like that.

"More frustrating than that was the lack of pace.

"I was almost four or five-tenths slower than what I did in FP3. I lost a lot of grip out there, I don't know if I need to review if any of the other drivers were struggling.

"But for me, from Turn 1, I was lacking rear grip, then it escalates because you start sliding more and then the tyre becomes out of control.

"My laps were actually more like race laps because I had to do so much tyre management through my qualifying laps, just to keep the rears alive through Sector 3.

"That's something we need to review because it was the same last year."