Why Alex Albon can still race in Dutch GP despite being disqualified from qualifying over illegal car part

Alex Albon will start the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort from the back of the grid after his Williams car was found to have an illegal part in qualifying. But why is he still able to race?

The Thai driver qualified an impressive eighth on Saturday, securing Williams' best qualifying result of 2024.

The Grove-based team brought a series of upgrades to Zandvoort, with one of those being a significant change to the car's floor.

However, the FIA found an issue with the measurements of the new part after the FIA's Technical Delegate Jo Bauer examined it during qualifying.

The error, Williams claimed, was down to their measurement system - which measured the floor to be within legal volumes - being different from the system that the FIA use.

Albon and his team were summoned to the stewards, before officially being disqualified. He will now start from the back of the grid.

An FIA statement read: "The floor body of Car 23 [Albon] was found to lie outside the regulatory volume mentioned in Article 3.5.1 a) of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations.

"The team did not dispute the calibration of the FIA measuring system and the measurement of the car, but stated that their own measurements have produced different results."

It continued: "The Stewards determine that the result of the measurement conducted with the FIA system in Parc Ferme is the relevant one and the due process prescribed by the regulations has been followed. Therefore the standard penalty for such an infringement is applied."

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Albon's discretion now technically means he falls within the 107 per cent rule, in which drivers must set a lap time that falls within 107 per cent of the fastest lap time in Q1.

As Albon has been disqualified from qualifying entirely, he hasn't therefore registered a lap time - despite getting into Q3 - and therefore is outside of the 107 per cent rule by default.

The reason he has not been disqualified from racing is because the rule is at the stewards' discretion. Generally, if a driver shows 'satisfactory times' in practice, they will be allowed to race.

Williams therefore made a request to the FIA to allow Albon to race, which was granted.

FIA

The rule was brought in for the 1996 F1 season, due to the fact that all 26 entries were able to qualify for races, regardless of speed.

In the past, entries were limited to 26 but there were substantially more cars attempting to qualify, meaning those who were too slow simply didn't make it into Grands Prix.

In 2010, the rule was brought back in for the 2011 season, with the struggling HRT team breaking it on four occasions in 2011 and 2012 and being banned from the race.

Since 2012, though, no driver who has fallen foul of the 107 per cent has been barred from the race.