Alex Albon has established himself as one of the best qualifiers on the grid in the past two seasons. Before this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the Thai driver held the second-longest record of beating his teammates in qualifying.
He had out-qualified his teammates for 50 consecutive races. However, that streak for Albon unfortunately came to an end in Baku after Franco Colapinto out-qualified him in only his second-ever F1 race.
The Argentine driver qualified an outstanding ninth and will start the race alongside Albon, who qualified in tenth. Albon could have had a chance of qualifying higher up the grid, had Williams not made a mistake.
The team sent the Thai driver out on the track with a cooling fan attached to his car. Since the team unsafely released him, he immediately pulled towards the side of the track after exiting the pits. While he managed to sort out the issue, it was too late by then.
Although Albon had the opportunity to set a lap time on his qualifying run, he had already pushed too hard on his out lap. As a result, he could not improve on his earlier Q3 run.
James Vowles apologized to Albon for the Q3 error
Since Albon lost out on the opportunity to qualify higher up the grid, Vowles apologized to his driver immediately after the session concluded. The Williams team principal said on the team radio,
“Alex, you drove spectacularly through qualifying. Well done for that. I’m sorry for that incident, and we are going to make sure that it doesn’t happen again“.
Williams’ mistake did not prove too costly in the end as the FIA only decided to fine the team $5,500 for their unsafe release and decided not to penalize Albon. While Albon’s insane qualifying record against his teammates ends because of Williams’ mistake, one cannot take anything away from Colapinto.
The Argentinian driver was fantastic throughout all three qualifying sessions and matched Albon in each one of them. Now, with Williams starting ninth and tenth courtesy of the brilliance of their drivers, they will hope for a good points-scoring finish.
