The team realised after testing that it hadn’t made the expected step with the FW44, and then progress wasn’t helped by two heavy accidents in Saudi Arabia for Nicholas Latifi that led a huge effort to ready his car for Melbourne. Latifi was then involved with a collision with Lance Stroll in Q1 in Australia.
Meanwhile having suffered damage in a collision with Stroll in the Jeddah race Alex Albon went to Australia with a three-place grid penalty, only to be excluded from qualifying and sent to the back of the grid after he failed to provide a fuel sample. He was told to stop on track at the end of Q1 after the need to do an unexpectedly fast out lap after the red flag saw consumption higher than expected.
