Williams driver Alex Albon revealed how he avoided a penalty in Formula 1’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix when he drove with a loose wheel for an entire lap in the race.
The Anglo-Thai driver made his first stop on the eighth lap at Imola from 14th place, but he radioed in to address that something had since become amiss on his car.
Despite the Williams mechanics having given Albon the green light to return back to the track, it became evident that the wheel had not been fastened onto the FW46.
Albon admitted he identified the issue once he had gone through the Tamburello chicane, prompting him to slow down due to concerns over the vibrations on his car.
“I didn’t feel it coming down the pits, but as soon as I took the pit limiter off there was a vibration, and I could tell something was wrong,” Albon said post-race.
However, Albon has stressed that he was never concerned the wheel could end up detached as he estimated that the movement of the tire was around 10 millimetres.
“When I was turning around corners you could see if the tyre was gonna fall off,” he explained.
“But it would only go to a point and stop. I could see it was quite safe. There was only about 10mm of movement on the tyre.”
Albon would be penalised with a 10-second stop-and-go due to Williams “releasing a car in an unsafe condition during a race,” ending his faint hopes at a points score.
Nevertheless, Albon did escape another sanction for continuing on with a loose wheel, which tends to constitute a breach of Article 34.14.e of F1’s sporting regulations.
The released document from the stewards explained that this incident wasn’t punished as it didn’t constitute “a classic loose wheel not captured by the wheel nut.”
“While he knew something was wrong with the car, it did not look from his position to be a classic loose wheel not captured by the wheel nut,” the stewards documented.
“He was shown the green light by the team to exit the pits, and the team did not call him as they did not know at the time that the wheel was loose.
“Rather, Albon heard a metallic scraping noise, reported that something was wrong and drove the car carefully to the pits.
“The stewards agreed that this was accomplished in a safe and appropriate manner, without affecting any other competitor and that the driver did not drive the car knowing it to be in an unsafe condition.”
