Hit with a five-second penalty after the Miami Sprint, Ted Kravitz has proclaimed Williams were “robbed” by the stewards as Alex Albon fell from fourth to 11th.

Albon qualified eighth for the 19-lap Sprint, and was fourth in the initial classification as he was elevated one position when Max Verstappen’s 10-second penalty for an unsafe release that led to a crash with Kimi Antonelli was applied.

‘There was a robbery, there was a robbery at Williams’

The Williams driver, though, soon found himself on the hot seat as he was investigated for a Safety Car infringement.

The Sprint finished behind the Safety Car, excluding the final few metres, with Albon investigated for failing to stay above the minimum time set by the ECU under the Safety Car.

Albon was found to have exceeded the time, although it was made clear he had not done anything maliciously.

The stewards announced: “The driver of Car 23 was below the minimum time set in the ECU in three consecutive sectors at the beginning of the Safety Car period which is in breach of Art. 55.7 of the Sporting Regulations. Therefore the standard penalty is applied.

“The stewards note that the track conditions were not ideal and that no unsafe or dangerous situation was created by the driver and therefore do not issue any penalty points.”

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He was given a five-second time penalty, dropping him from fourth to 11th.

“There was a robbery, there was a robbery at Williams today,” said the Sky F1 pit lane reporter. “I’ll say it, I think there was a robbery at Williams here.

“They got robbed of fourth place in the Sprint race.

“He’s too diplomatic to say it, but James Vowles agrees, and he said to me in an interview, those the loss of those five points will haunt me for the rest of the season in that rather brilliant, verbose, not verbose, florid way that James Vowles has when he’s doing some talking in interviews.

“So, yeah, today, it was much better in terms of the qualifying session. Well, I mean, you know, after being robbed of the Safety Car.”

Williams’ Sprint woes were compounded by Carlos Sainz’s crash, the team failing to score a single point.

But they fought back a few hours later to qualify sixth and seventh, Sainz ahead of Albon, for the Miami Grand Prix.

“What I love about this team,” said Vowles, ” is that even when we are kicked down, we come back stronger. It was great to see the whole team fired up and wanting to show the world that we have a fast car this weekend.

It was a perfectly executed Qualifying and the result is an incredibly rewarding one. We’ve got a good car for the race tomorrow – we have to acknowledge that there are fast cars behind us – but our job is to get two cars in the points.”

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