Albon describes Las Vegas Qualifying as “frustrating in many ways” after early exit

Alex Albon questions the FIA after a “sketchy” qualifying session in the wet, which saw the driver eliminated in Q1.

Photo credits: F1

Unlike the previous two outings in Las Vegas, the beginning of the weekend started off wet, with two damp practice sessions. The tough conditions carried over into qualifying with drivers in the first quarter of the session using extreme tyres. 

The track proved difficult, with many drivers struggling to keep their cars from hitting the wall. Alex Albon tagged his Williams on the inside wall of Turn 16, which brought an end to his qualifying after his suspension was broken, resulting in 16th.

The Thai-British driver wasn’t the only one with Oliver Bearman also ending his session early after a shunt. Carlos Sainz, in the other Williams, was able to extract the most from his car, qualifying in third for the race.

“Frustrating in many ways," Albon said after his challenging session. 

"I think we just need to review where we were on track, because we were unfortunately in the slow group, where I think it was Lewis [Hamilton], myself, Liam [Lawson].

"I think at that time we were all just slow on track and I kept catching them all and getting into dirty air. I think in the end I had one clean lap, so I kind of had to make it count.

"It was my only clean lap, so I didn't really have any rhythm at all. It was okay. Made a mistake and that was it.” He explained.

Albon admitted his surprise about the decision from race control not to red-flag the session, pointing to the difficult challenges the drivers faced in the session: 

"I'm surprised we were driving, to be honest, in many ways. Like, the aquaplaning into Turn 14 was incredible. And it was a little bit of a lottery if you got it or not. But yeah, it was sketchy.”

"The reason why the wet works is because there's not any long corners, high-speed corners to damage it. So it works well.

"I think you saw it work well in Canada a few years ago as well, like these tracks where it's just straight line braking and accelerating. It's good. But it was still, at least… I think everyone runs different ride heights, so you never know for sure, but it was still on the limit for sure. Yeah, it was sketchy.”

“I think Turkey 2020 still tops it, but it was severe.”

Autosport went on to ask Albon if race control should’ve gotten involved regarding the conditions:

“I think it's going to be the way it is and yeah, maybe call into question if we should have been driving. I think it could have been red-flagged and we could have gone again and stopped maybe some of the randomness of the aquaplaning.

"I think they could see that cars were aquaplaning and maybe could have done something about it a bit earlier, but at the same time I think it was okay.”

The forecast for Sunday’s race is set to be in dry conditions, with Albon hoping to make up positions and bounce back in Sin City.