Alex Albon has been excluded from Australian Grand Prix qualifying following a fuel regulation breach.
The Williams driver qualified 16th in Melbourne, missing out on Q2 by just 0.031s, but would come to a stop approaching the penultimate corner on his way back to the pitlane.
After the session, the stewards revealed the likely reason why as officials only extracted 0.33L of fuel from Albon’s car, well below the required one-litre sample.
Ready to get our heads down and race tomorrow ?@alex_albon discusses quali in Melbourne ?️ pic.twitter.com/dnC1mxsaJj
— Williams Racing (@WilliamsRacing) April 9, 2022
As a result, the London-born Thai driver was disqualified from the session but has been permitted to start the race from the back of the grid.
“It’s frustrating not to make it through to Q2 today,” Albon said before the ruling. “The team have done an amazing job overnight to maximise the performance of the car, so we were in a position to fight for more.
“We’re finding that we need to do a couple of push laps to get the tyres in the optimum window, and unfortunately, my second lap on the second set of tyres was interrupted by the red flag.
“I felt like we deserved a bit more today, but it’s all to play for tomorrow.”
Several drivers remain under investigation for qualifying infringements including polesitter Charles Leclerc, who has been summoned for driving unnecessarily slowly in Q1, and Sergio Perez for ignoring yellow flags in Q2.
