F1 driver in bizarre never-before-seen incident at Azerbaijan GP after major error from pit crew

Williams driver Alex Albon was forced to manually remove an airbox from the top of his car while on track during Azerbaijan Grand Prix qualifying.

Albon and team-mate Franco Colapinto both made it into Q3 at Baku to represent a successful session for Williams.

They both produced respectable laps on their first attempts in the final session, and had one more flying lap to end qualifying.

But Albon drove out of his Williams garage with the airbox that cools the car still attached to it.

The mix-up was spotted by McLaren's Oscar Piastri as he drove past the Thai driver, and he told his race engineer to alert Williams to the problem.

But while the Williams mechanics watched on, Albon quickly realised he had to try and remove the airbox himself, as anybody else doing so would have counted as illegal outside interference and potentially caused a disqualification from the session.

It took Albon around a minute to finally detach the airbox from his car and drive away, although he couldn't drive around the track quickly enough to get another lap in before time ran out.

You can see the incident below.

@F1/Twitter

Williams team principal James Vowles personally apologised to Albon after the team error, but the Thai driver replied: "No stress."

He will start from 10th place at Baku tomorrow, with team-mate Colapinto ahead of him in ninth after a superb qualifying session in what is only his second F1 race weekend.

Both drivers are ahead of McLaren's Lando Norris, who was eliminated in surprise fashion in Q1 by a combination of a yellow flag and a driver error coming out of turn 15.

Norris will start in P17 tomorrow, with team-mate Oscar Piastri in second place behind polesitter Charles Leclerc. Championship leader Max Verstappen qualified sixth.