In the first free practice of the Formula 1 Mexico City Grand Prix, Williams’ Alexander Albon and Ferrari’s youngster Oliver Bearman, who will compete at Haas next year, had a strange accident when the Thai driver slid into the red car from the side before turn 10.


The Ferrari less so, the Williams was thoroughly crushed in the wall, but beyond that there were no consequences of the incident, the race inspectors saw that Albon tried to slow down when approaching Bearman, who was on the track in front of him and was about to let him go, and the car became uncontrollable due to the sudden change in load .

Robert Svarcman, who arrived not far behind them, fared worse. The youngster, who was also brought up by Ferrari, was watching Bearman’s car from behind the wheel of the Sauber, so he did not pay attention to the fact that he overtook Cunoda Juki’s VCARB under first single and then double yellow flags.

Although the stewards also stated that Svarcman would not start the race, they awarded him the usual five-place start penalty in the interest of consistency.

There was already a similar example in 2017: at the then Monaco Grand Prix, Jenson Button, who had already retired at the end of 2016, jumped in at McLaren to replace Fernando Alonso, who was starting at the Indy500, but he had to say goodbye to the race with a nasty accident. Although the world champion did not plan to participate in another F1 race, the stewards gave him a three-place starting penalty “for the next race” for covering the barrier of Sauber’s Pascal Wehrlein.