Alex Albon faced an unusual and costly setback during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix qualifying session in Baku. As the Thai-British driver prepared for his final lap in Q3, the Williams team mistakenly left an airbox cooling fan attached to his car rendering him unable to start his final run.

When Albon realized the fan was still on his car, he stopped and managed to remove and dump it by the side of the track for the marshals to pick it up. As a result, he couldn’t do an optimal lap time and had to settle for P10 on the grid for the race. However, the incident triggered an investigation by the race stewards.

According to the FIA’s sporting regulations, releasing a car from the pits in an unsafe manner is a serious offense. Article 34.14 of the sporting code states that a car is considered to be released unsafely if it endangers personnel or other drivers, or if it is not ready to race.

The regulation allows stewards to impose penalties, including dropping the driver down the grid, depending on the severity of the offense. In this case, since it occurred during a regular qualifying session, the stewards could impose a grid penalty on Albon’s car for Sunday’s Grand Prix. However, there is also a possibility of a financial penalty for Williams.

After the incident, Williams’ team principal, James Vowles came over on the team radio to address the situation. He offered his apologies to Albon, saying: “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.”

Albon asked Vowles not to fret over it as they are in a good position to score points on Sunday, but that could change quickly if the stewards decide to penalize Albon.