James Vowles reacts to close-call between Albon and Browning ahead of Bahrain GP

Williams team principal James Vowles has reacted to the close call between Alex Albon and reserve driver Luke Browning during FP1 of the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend. Admitting it was an issue with the team, not Browning himself, the chief placed his support behind the driver.

While on a flying lap, Albon almost hit Browning on Turn 13 when the reserve driver moved late off the racing line. This forced the Thai-British driver to swerve off the track as he avoided any potential clash. Aston Martin’s Felipe Drugovich, sat behind the two Williams drivers as this took place, was quick to comment: “Wowch, that was close,” he said down the team radio.

Both drivers involved were summoned to the stewards following the session.

This came as Browning stepped into Carlos Sainz’s seat for FP1, in line with new rules this season which stipulate teams to run rookie drivers in place of each race driver at least twice during free practice sessions over the course of the season.

In Friday’s press conference following the session, Vowles took full responsibility for the incident while standing behind his driver:

“Yeah, I mean that’s not on Luke, that’s on us. Luke did a brilliant job. I’m not sure how much he followed it, but fundamentally he’s doing a lot of aerodynamic work for us.

“It’s an opportunity to come back to where we were testing before, with a car that’s slightly different, and just make sure we understand what’s changed, how it’s adapted.

“And so in that case, Luke really was doing a number of in-out runs and we only gave him one timed lap on the soft. And for his only one lap, I don’t think it’s a bad effort putting him P13 on the time sheets. So really, really happy with the work he did.”

Browning finished in a respectable 12th place on the timesheet. And with FP1 featuring very different temperatures to qualifying and the race, this was an efficient session to fulfil this ruling.

“It’s much, much warmer than it will be so it is unrepresentative, and [Sainz] has done many hundreds of kilometres around here,” Vowles said. 

“It’s always painful, but it is less painful to run a Friday driver here.”