Albon set for pitlane start after disqualification for illegal floor

Adam Cooper
24/08/2024

Alex Albon is set to start the Dutch GP from the pitlane after his Williams was disqualified from qualifying due to a floor infringement.

The FIA determined that the revised floor of the FW46 was too wide after Albon had done a great job to qualify eighth.

The team was adamant that by its own measurements the car was legal.

However what counts are the FIA numbers and after the calibration of the system was checked the stewards determined that the car was indeed outside the rules.

They noted that “the team did not dispute the calibration of the FIA measuring system and the measurement of the car, but stated that their own measurements have produced different results.

“The stewards determine that the result of the measurement conducted with the FIA system in parc ferme is the relevant one and the due process prescribed by the regulations has been followed. Therefore the standard penalty for such an infringement is applied.”

Assuming that the team can make the car legal overnight Albon will be allowed to start the race, but because by definition it will be a change of spec he will have to do so from the pitlane.

Logan Sargeant did not take part in qualifying after his FP3 crash and therefore did not come under parc ferme rules.

Again assuming that the team can provide him with legal parts he should be able to take the start from 19th place on the grid, having not set a time.

The Williams team noted: “We are incredibly disappointed with this outcome and will be carrying out a thorough investigation and will provide an update soon.”

Speaking before the floor issue arose Albon said he was happy with the upgrade package.

“We’ve been good here, last year we were strong here, so I don’t think it’s necessarily such a huge surprise,” he said.

“But at the same time we’ve been falling down race-by-race in terms of relative performance to the cars around us. So it’s nice to kind of pull ourselves a little bit back up.

We just feel like we’re six or seven races behind most teams. They’ve already done their upgrades. Now we’re finally putting on ours. So we started the season kind of a bit more where we are now.”

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