Williams has been hit with a €5,000 fine for an unsafe release in FP3 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, after Alex Albon was sent out into the path of Esteban Ocon’s Haas in the closing minutes of final practice.
The repeat nature of it won’t have helped. The pair were involved in an almost identical near-miss during qualifying in Qatar a week earlier, that time without sanction. In Abu Dhabi the stewards took a dim view, noting Ocon had to “brake almost to a stop” to avoid contact as Albon exited the box.
In their verdict, the panel wrote: “This was a clear case of a release which caused another car to brake almost to a stop to avoid a collision and hence was determined to be unsafe.” Albon and Ocon were both heard, with video, in-car and team radio reviewed before the decision.
On the timesheets, it was a mixed picture. Albon later qualified 17th for the season finale, while Ocon put the Haas eighth on the grid, outqualifying rookie teammate Oliver Bearman for the second time in three races. It’s been that kind of season for Williams—flashes of execution, but too many scruffy moments at the edges.
The penalty landed on what was already a busy day for the stewards. Aston Martin were handed separate fines totalling €25,000 after Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll failed to appear at a Friday fan event; €15,000 of that amount was suspended. It’s the sort of administrative misstep teams hate getting pinged for—avoidable, and it all adds up.
Red Bull also picked up a €10,000 fine tied to an FP3 incident that left Yuki Tsunoda with a formal warning for impeding Lando Norris. Later in the session, Tsunoda became entangled in a different scrape altogether when he and Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli made contact in the pit lane. Mercedes accepted blame, calling it a “bit of a rush” to turn Antonelli around after the red flag for Lewis Hamilton’s FP3 accident, and were fined €10,000.
The common thread? A paddock that felt a touch frantic as teams chased final run plans before qualifying. Abu Dhabi can do that—short windows, falling track temperatures, and the constant trade-off between learning and risk. But the line is the line, and on Saturday the officials were keen to draw it.
For Williams, the fine is more about execution than money. Unsafe releases are bread-and-butter errors that teams pride themselves on eliminating, and back-to-back near-misses with the same rival don’t read well. Albon’s pace has often outstripped the box score this year, but when the margins are thin, the little things—an extra beat on the lollipop, a sharper look down the fast lane—matter.
Ocon, meanwhile, continues to wring strong one-lap speed out of the Haas as the calendar winds down, and keeping Bearman at arm’s length on Saturdays will not be lost on the team as they look to bank a clean finale.
The rest of the grid will be hoping Sunday is a touch calmer than Saturday. The stewards certainly wouldn’t mind it either.
