Explained: How an ‘Innocent Switch Position’ Lead to Alex Albon’s Explosive Qualifying Incident at Imola

Alex Albon was involved in a fiery incident at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix qualifying. His car was literally on fire as he was on his initial flying laps. The back of Albon’s car caught fire with his brakes heating up. Despite that, he managed to drive the FW44 back into the garage, which proved helpful in containing the damage.

What caused the fire in Alex Albon’s Williams?

It was an early end to qualifying for Alex Albon. He went out on intermediates, like most of the grid, to tackle the damp conditions. And his brake balance was originally set for intermediate tires as Albon took the first lap of the qualifying. Later on, he pitted for soft slick tires. However, the brake balance reminded unchanged and even the team did not request a change. Alex could’ve changed the settings from his steering if requested.

However, no such request was made, and building sufficient rear brake temperature became a problem for Williams. Diving deeper into in issue, Williams’ head of vehicle performance, Dave Robson said, “We were running a fairly rearward brake balance in the wet because we were struggling to get the brakes hot enough. You are balanced on a knife edge between getting them hot enough when it is wet and not letting them run away when it’s dry. It’s just frustrating.”

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A Formula 1 vehicle is a complicated machine and sometimes it takes half a season to get things working smoothly.

Nicholas Latifi suffered the same fate as Albon during the Bahrain Test

Albon went through the same thing that Latifi did in the Bahrain testing. However, Latifi did not drive back to the pits, but Albon did, and this proved to be the correct approach. “So getting the car back and letting the guys deal with it straight away rather than parking up and waiting for a marshal was definitely the right thing,” claimed Robson.

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The track and weather conditions changed quite a bit from FP1 to qualifying. So Williams had to take a chance that literally ‘blew up’. However, Alex is a talented driver who finished brilliantly at P10 at the Australian Grand Prix. Can we expect more of the same from the 26-year-old? We’ll soon find out!