Williams punished after bizarre Albon qualifying incident

Williams has been handed a €5,000 fine following a bizarre incident involving Alex Albon in qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Midway through Q3, with both Williams cars involved in the session for the first time this year as rookie Franco Colapinto had superbly reached the top-10 shoot-out, Albon was forced to stop at the end of the pit lane as the airbox cooler was still attached to his car.

With the marshals unable to help Albon, the Thai-British driver managed to reach behind him, grab the airbox and push it onto the side of the track.

The time lost in doing so, however, meant he was unable to cross the line to start his final timed lap, leaving him lining up 10th on the grid at the Baku Street Circuit.

The stewards, however, were forced to investigate an unsafe release, drawing to the conclusion that Williams warranted a fine.

The stewards' report read: "The general expectation when released in an unsafe condition is to simply stop at the next safe location. 

“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.”