He hit the curb, which threw him off, and the car subsequently smashed against the guardrails. He then immediately heard a question in the headphones: “Are you okay?”
“Yes. And sorry,” Alex Albon replied sadly.
He probably already had an inkling of the serious consequences of his carambole. A lot of debris was left on the track, the race management put up red flags and then it was a few hours to see if Albon would show up for Friday’s second practice. This did not happen and the Williams team announced that they did not have a replacement chassis in Australia.
“It is seriously damaged. And if it can’t be fixed overnight, the team must decide who gets the only car left for the race. The engine and gearbox were also damaged,” journalist Tobi Grüner from Auto Motor und Sport reported from Australia.
The team’s co-pilot, American Logan Sargeant, gave the engineers a scare in the second practice session when he was clocked. But even so, it would be unexpected when the team “took” his car and gave preference to Albon.
“But it is surprising that Williams did not make a replacement monocoque,” commentator and former competitor Josef Král admitted on the Nova Sport broadcast.
At the beginning of the season, however, many single-seaters are still developing, so apparently Williams was waiting for some improvements.
McLaren’s Lando Norris and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc won the opening practice sessions for the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix. Second was reigning world champion Max Verstappen of Red Bull, who lost 18 thousandths of a second to Norris in the first session and was 381 thousandths behind Leclerc in the afternoon runs. Third in the second practice was Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz, who is returning from appendicitis surgery.
The Australian Grand Prix program will continue with Saturday’s third practice session, after which qualifying will start at 6:00 a.m. CET. The race will take place one hour earlier on Sunday.
Tags: Albon smashed car practice Williams spare Australia Hell lose race
