Albon gets Miami sprint grid drop after missed track limits breach

Alex Albon has been dropped down the grid for Formula 1's Miami sprint race after the FIA missed a track limits offence that should have been punished in qualifying.

Albon made it into SQ2 in Miami and outpaced Williams team-mate Carlos Sainz on his way to a theoretical 14th place on the grid for Saturday's race.

But he will start 19th as he has been stripped of all his SQ2 times and his fastest SQ1 lap.

The stewards' document said in explaining their decision: "During SQ1, car #23 clearly exceeded track limits in Turn 6. However this was not reported to the stewards until SQ2 had commenced.

"Car #23's time recorded on the lap that track limits were exceeded was sufficient to place it in SQ2. Hence at the time the stewards were informed that car #23 had left the track and that its lap should have been potentially deleted, it was already on track in SQ2."

The precedent for this comes from last year's Bahrain GP, where the FIA missed a Nico Hulkenberg infringement and he was allowed to proceed to Q2 - ironically having knocked out Albon.

Liam Lawson, who ran back to his car after getting knocked out in SQ1 in Miami as his Racing Bulls team thought Albon might get swiftly disqualified, lost out because of the oversight.

Speaking about the decision to return to the car, Lawson said: "Alex, he did track limits but I think they realised too late and because he'd already gone out on track - I honestly can't understand how that's possible but from our understanding he's literally done track limits and then gone through to Q2."

Lawson will now gain one grid position from Albon's times being removed and start 16th.