FIA announce punishment for F1 star at Bahrain GP after dicey team-mate incident

Alex Albon has been hit with a fine at the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend for an incident which took place during the first session of action.

The Williams driver was charged by the stewards with unnecessarily impeding another driver late on in FP1, with that other driver being his own team-mate.

That team-mate, in this instance, wasn't actually Carlos Sainz but in fact, the team's academy star Luke Browning, the rookie driver who was dropped into the second Williams seat for the session as part of the team's compliance with new FIA regulations.

Browning showed out well in the hour's running, the fastest of the six drivers parachuted in for the session, beating young drivers in nominally faster cars – including Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes.

Albon hit with hefty fine at Bahrain Grand Prix

Albon was fined €7,500 for the incident, which was seen by Aston Martin reserve driver Felipe Drugovich from his vantage point in his own hour of track action, noting “Wowch! That was close," over team radio.

The stewards' ruling read: "The driver stated that he had no warning of the approach of Car 46 and that it was impossible to see its approach in his mirrors due to the speed of the approach and the angle of the car, and the presence of a third car (Car 34 Felipe Drugovich).

"The team representative stated that the engineers responsible for monitoring the situation were “both distracted” and failed to provide the necessary warning.

"In mitigation of penalty, the Stewards took into account the fact that Car 46 was on an out lap and not a push lap however the situation could have been quite serious in view of the high speed delta."

The incident is one of the first times this season Albon has put a foot wrong in his Williams, putting up 18 of the team's 19 points so far, having finished in the top ten at all three races this year.

Full-time team-mate Sainz has fared less well, dealing with a mixture of bad luck and poor pace to put up just a single point – and even that one somewhat handed to him when he finished 13th in China only to see three cars ahead of him disqualified after the race, landing him in the points.

Racing Bulls appear to have taken over Williams' pre-season position as the fifth-fastest team on the circuit despite their relative lack of points, with Isack Hadjar in particular looking strong last weekend in Japan and finishing highest out of the Red Bull drivers in FP2 on Friday.

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