Albon says his car won’t be fixed in time to start Brazilian Grand Prix · RaceFans

Alexander Albon says his Williams won’t be repaired in time for him to start the Brazilian Grand Prix.

He crashed heavily in Q3 during the Sunday morning qualifying session at Interlagos, causing extensive damage to his FW46.

“It won’t be fixed,” said Albon, who is convinced he suffered a failure on his car when he crashed at the Senna S.

“I think we had an issue,” he told the official F1 channel. “I know we had an issue. We just need to go through it.

“Immediately when I hit the brake pedal, there was a beep in my ear, which normally means there’s a failure. And then rear locking and a big crash. So that’s us out for the race, unfortunately.”

Albon looked on course for a strong result until then, having set the second-fastest time until that point.

Williams suffered a double blow as Franco Colapinto crashed the other car earlier in the session, leaving them with two repair jobs to complete.

The difficulty of fixing cars in time for the race has been amplified by the fact qualifying was rescheduled to Sunday morning. It began at 7:30am local time and took one and three-quarter hours to complete due to five red flags for crashes.

Both Aston Martin drivers also crashed during the session, leaving them with an extensive repair job before the race. Ferrari also need to repair Carlos Sainz Jnr’s car following his crash in Q2.

The race is due to begin at 12:30pm local time. The starting time was brought forwards by 90 minutes yesterday due to concerns over the forecast for heavy rain at the track throughout the day.

However the possibility the race start could be delayed due to the impending rain may give teams extra time to complete repairs to their cars.

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