The Williams driver stopped on lap eight from working 14th early on in Sunday’s race, however when he returned to the observe he slowed down after traversing the Tamburello chicane the place he noticed the extent of the issue.
Albon then toured slowly again to the pits to modify to a brand new set of tyres and rejoined the race one lap down.
He was then slapped with a 10s cease/go penalty for violating Article 34.14d of F1’s sporting guidelines that governs groups releasing automobiles in an unsafe situation throughout a race. This successfully ended his race as he went two laps down and Albon was withdrawn with 10 laps to go.
“I didn’t really feel it coming down the pits, however as quickly as I took the pit limiter off there was like a vibration and I may inform one thing was incorrect,” Albon informed reporters after the race at Imola that was gained by Pink Bull’s Max Verstappen.
When requested if he had felt it was protected to drive again with the unfastened wheel, Albon confirmed this was the case as a result of he may see it was “nonetheless hooked up”.
“After I was turning round corners you could possibly see if the tyre was gonna fall off,” he added.
“However it could solely go to a degree and cease. I may see it was fairly protected. There was solely about 10mm of motion on the tyre.”
Albon additionally mentioned in a Williams press launch that “I perceive why I received the penalty”, whereas he escaped sanction for persevering with on with the unfastened wheel. That is normally a breach of Article 34.14.e of F1’s sporting guidelines.
However the Imola stewards accepted Albon’s rationalization of the incident, which they mentioned was “supported by in-car video”.
Alex Albon, Williams FW46, is available in for a pit cease
Picture by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
“Whereas he knew one thing was incorrect with the automotive, it didn’t look from his place to be a traditional unfastened wheel not captured by the wheel nut,” the stewards doc asserting the results of the second investigation into Albon’s actions added.
“He was proven the inexperienced gentle by the staff to exit the pits, and the staff didn’t name him as they didn’t know on the time that the wheel was unfastened.
“Relatively, Albon heard a metallic scraping noise, reported that one thing was incorrect and drove the automotive rigorously to the pits.
“The stewards agreed that this was achieved in a protected and acceptable method, with out affecting every other competitor and that the driving force didn’t drive the automotive realizing it to be in an unsafe situation.”
Williams has thus far not defined what occurred to Albon’s proper entrance wheel at his first service, with staff sporting director Sven Smeets saying solely in the identical press launch that “Alex’s race was over after an issue in his first pitstop with the correct entrance wheel”.
Albon did full 43 extra laps after getting again to the pits to get a totally secured set of wheels, which Smeets mentioned was “studying for subsequent yr and determined to retire him earlier than the top of the race”.
Albon mentioned of this: “We have been simply attempting some stuff – attempting to determine a few of our braking feeling with the automotive and simply attempting to see if there have been any options on a long term with the automotive we’ve received.
“With the wind and simply with the form of rearwards… simply taking part in round with the brakes. It was okay. Simply driving round experimenting.”