Alexander Albon has been disqualified from today’s qualifying session for the Dutch Grand Prix due to a technical infringement.
The new floor Williams introduced this weekend was found to contravene the technical rules.Williams introduced its first major technical update of the season at the Dutch Grand Prix. The package of parts included a revised floor which Williams said had been “fully updated” featuring a “completely new floor geometry.”
Albon qualified eighth, his best starting position of the season so far. His disqualification means he will either have to start from the back of the grid or the pits, depending on the steps Williams take in order to make his car compliant.
FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer stated “the floor body was found to lie outside the regulatory volume mentioned in Article 3.5.1 (a)” of the technical regulations. The floor body must comply with many different dimensions which take up two pages of the rule book.
After meeting with the stewards, Williams claimed that the team’s own measurements of their floor produced different results to those of the FIA. However, the stewards state the team “did not dispute the calibration of the FIA measuring system and the measurement of the car.” The stewards insisted that the FIA’s measurements are the only ones that matter and as the team’s floor failed examination, Albon had to be disqualified from the results of qualifying.
In a statement shared to RaceFans, Williams said they were “incredibly disappointed with this outcome” and “will be carrying out a thorough investigation” into how their new floor failed scrutineering.
Albon’s team mate Logan Sargeant did not take part in qualifying as Williams were unable to repair his car in time following his heavy crash in practice. The stewards have granted him permission to start the race as he set sufficiently competitive times earlier in the weekend.
The last team which was found to have infringed the technical regulations during qualifying was Haas at the Monaco Grand Prix. Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen were disqualified from the session and started the race from the back of the grid.
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Jere (@jerejj)
24th August 2024, 17:55
A technical rule I’ve never heard about & of course, disqualification is the given outcome, meaning Williams will cover the back.
ludewig
24th August 2024, 20:04
There are limitations for the sizes of all parts of the car, usually defined by requiring them to fit within a certain (imagined) box.
SteveP
24th August 2024, 21:01
RV-FLOOR-BODY
The definition of which is, erm, not as simple as you might imagine, but then this is FIA regs.
Paul A (@paul-a)
24th August 2024, 22:06
OK, I’ve read it. The stewards write: “The floor body of Car 23 was found to lie outside the regulatory volume mentioned in Article 3.5.1 a) of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations” — but Article 3.5.1 a) does not mention ‘volume‘. So they’re probably nit-picking over something in Appendix 1 (I’m not a lawyer.) By how much, and why they’re picking on a team at the back of the grid when Albon produced quite an enthusiastic quali, remains to be seen.
Hopefully it’s some minor radius that they can grind off before tomorrow. Last time, Russel sweated off a kilo or two or ground his Pirellis down a bit too far, this time Williams who claim to have measured things properly. What next in this stewards’ circus?
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
24th August 2024, 22:54
Williams is entirely at fault there, with failing to pass the tests. Embarrassing and costly mistake on their part.
grat
25th August 2024, 0:08
RV-FLOOR-BODY is the defined volume of the floor, and it’s 2.5 pages and roughly 1050 words.
This being the FIA, I’m sure that there’s absolutely no room for misinterpretation.
Dale
25th August 2024, 3:46
If you haven’t heard about it, that’s 100% on you and your ignorance.
Rules are rules.
BasCB (@bascb)
24th August 2024, 18:13
Williams pushing the boundaries then! I guess that is good, unless it’s proven to actually have been pushed a bit too far, that is.
Dex
24th August 2024, 19:41
That’s another way to look at it. I see it more like Williams not having established right internal procedures and a system. They have problems others have not, sometimes odd ones.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
24th August 2024, 20:05
desperate measures from people who don’t believe in themselves or their drivers me thinks.
EllisMS
25th August 2024, 5:44
Given James Vowles mentioned that Williams were (maybe still are) running their parts inventory from an Excel spreadsheet, they have a lot of processes to improve.
I imagine the team are devastated by this issue. There is no incentive to get things like this wrong (as demonstrated by Russell’s recent disqualification amongst others), so I cannot see this as anything other than a painful mistake by the team.
On the positive side the car appeared to be quicker, so hopefully they can resolve the issue quickly and get back to racing.
BasCB (@bascb)
25th August 2024, 13:02
Yeah, reading what Vowles has said about adressing this issue and having measured everything up front and being sure they had all the dimensions within the scope of the rules, while the FIA now measured/scanned it and said “nope, does not comply” shows that there is something wrong with how they measure stuff.
notagrumpyfan
24th August 2024, 18:14
I cannot see them explaining that away, hence disqualification.
If Sargeant gets the old floor, then he might be allowed by the Stewards to participate. But interestingly, that will then be based on FP results which I assumed where achieved with the same (illegal) floor.
notagrumpyfan
24th August 2024, 18:30
Stewards’ approval for Sargeant to start in the race.
notagrumpyfan
24th August 2024, 19:12
And disqualification confirmed.
Jere (@jerejj)
24th August 2024, 19:20
notagrumpyfan Sargeant was always going to get permission regardless of floor specification, given he’d set satisfactory lap times in practice, which is the sole factor for the 107% rule after zero qualifying running.
notagrumpyfan
25th August 2024, 7:16
You missed my point; that 107% was (most likely) set in an illegal car.
Todfod (@todfod)
24th August 2024, 19:38
I would just ask Sergeant to sit this one out. Regardless of whether they have two compliant floors, it’s just a waste of time to run a driver who is incapable of scoring points and always poses a high risk of further reducing the development budget by crashing on race day.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
24th August 2024, 20:39
Williams will finish 9th in the championship, right in front of the degen brand3d team in 10th. Theres nothing stopping that.
AlanD
24th August 2024, 18:37
It seems incredible that with all the man hours that must have gone into desgin and manufacture of that new floor, that they overlooked a black and white technical regulation. If the stewards can measure it at the track and determine it is illegal, why didn’t they do those same measurements at the factory?
Nick T.
24th August 2024, 18:42
They’re still using rocks with little notches back at Grove because Frank insisted on making everything in house.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
24th August 2024, 20:09
It does seem like a very elementary mistake. Clearly there are still a lot of operational issues at Williams that they need to fix before they can even start thinking about troubling the teams in the top half of the grid.
Osnola
25th August 2024, 9:02
Probably still measuring in medieval units…
While fia use more recent standards…
Nick T.
24th August 2024, 18:41
So disappointing. I was really excited to see Albon finally having a competitive car.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
24th August 2024, 20:44
they should have tried an inertial valve, it won Max 2 or 3 championships. Well that on top of ridiculous stewarding.
Coventry Climax
24th August 2024, 22:10
The entire history of F1 has brought champion drivers and champion teams based on engineers coming up with things on their car that others hadn’t thought about. That’s what put F1 at the forefront of development.
It’s only in the odd last 10 years or so, that instead of trying to figure out what it is that makes the other team’s cars so good, people just started to complain about it with the FiA and have them declare it illegal.
And for me, that’s exactly why F1 sucks these days.
David B
24th August 2024, 19:23
I know that the floor changes with use but surely it shouldn’t have got to qualifying to rule it out & been done before so.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
24th August 2024, 21:28
That’s what gets me. Haas’ explanation for their disqualification in Monaco was that it was an installation error that the mechanics /engineers hadn’t accounted for on the new wing. Basically the dimensions on the new wing were different, and they calibrated it like they had on the previous wing. Fair enough. A mistake. They got it wrong.
But something like a floor. Being pretty much static and well defined, and something that takes a significant amount of time and resources to make. You’d think that someone would ask the FIA long before qualifying what they thought of how Williams had interpreted the rules.
I love that Williams are trying, and a competitive Williams is great. But unless the floor was damaged, I don’t really understand how it got this far before disqualification.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
24th August 2024, 21:48
I agree, the error should have been picked up before the car got into Qualifying. I thought the Stewards checked the cars at regular stages through the weekend, but this suggests this was the first time they looked underneath the car. It also sounds like the rules aren’t black and white, rather this is one of the 128 shades of JPEG grey.
notagrumpyfan
25th August 2024, 7:21
Only from quali onwards (when leaving the pit the first time) the car full design and rulebook comes into play.
Therefore, there is no use, other than for safety issues, for FIA to check the cars before qualifying.
BLS (@brightlampshade)
24th August 2024, 21:12
Not exactly a huge time window to get the floor legal in time for Monza either!
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
24th August 2024, 22:42
After such a long wait for substantial updates, this is truly embarrassing
An Sionnach
25th August 2024, 0:22
They can have a lend of my measuring tape.
Dale
25th August 2024, 3:50
Imagine a F1 world where race cars are checked BEFORE the first practice starts … and where the results at the flag are the same as the one’s published in the media on Monday mornings.
Guess that’s too much to expect from a sport that pitches itself as the pinnacle of technology.
Pinak Ghosh (@pinakghosh)
25th August 2024, 3:54
Is the car not inspected on Friday by FIA? Why wait till qualifying end and then disqualify?
S
25th August 2024, 6:52
Many comments here suggest that people remain unaware that the FIA largely doesn’t care what car specifications teams use in unofficial (practice) sessions.
Having legal cars in official sessions is all that matters.
I have an opinion
25th August 2024, 10:05
Sainz can’t wait to get amongst this.
Stoo
25th August 2024, 13:17
If the floor is designed to fit inside a defined box, then why the hell does it take 1050 words to describe what the form should be ?
I’d also like to know by how much it was outside of the regulation size ….. for instance are we talking micrometres or centimetres of volume, because that would surely highlight how nitpicky or otherwise the FIA regs are.