Hadjar gets a stewards' warning for 'retaliatory action' against Albon in Austin practice
Red Bull's Isack Hadjar was investigated after steering towards Williams driver Alex Albon at Turn 1 in final practice for the United States Grand Prix. According to RacingNews365, the stewards called it retaliatory action and issued a warning.
A lock-up and a tense moment
Qualifying in Austin was only hours away when Isack Hadjar landed in front of the stewards. The Red Bull driver was on a fast lap in final practice when he arrived at Turn 1 too quickly, locked his front-left tyre and ran wide. In his view, Alex Albon's Williams was in the way.
PlanetF1 reported that the stewards opened a post-session investigation into possible erratic driving, and that Hadjar complained over the radio that Albon had made a mistake. The same report said he then crowded the Williams towards the edge of the track on the exit of the corner.
What the stewards decided
According to RacingNews365, the stewards concluded that Albon had moved to the outside precisely to avoid impeding Hadjar. They described the Frenchman's steering towards the Williams as "retaliatory action", behaviour they wanted to discourage, and issued a formal warning rather than a penalty.
The stewards reportedly added that a dangerous move or a collision would have drawn a harsher sanction. We could not find a second outlet or an FIA document confirming the wording of the decision at the time of writing, so the details of the ruling are attributed to RacingNews365.
How the session went for both drivers
Our results table for practice three shows Hadjar 10th with a best lap of 1:35.930, 1.037 seconds behind Lewis Hamilton and just 0.001 seconds ahead of Liam Lawson in 11th. His team-mate Max Verstappen was second, 0.168 seconds off the top.
Albon, who was classified 19th according to PlanetF1, was one of the drivers hit hard by track limits in the weekend's practice sessions. Our earlier report on the 207 deleted laps in Austin practice lists him at the top of that table.
What it means
A warning carries no grid penalty, so the incident should not change the starting order for the race on Sunday 25 October. It does, however, add to a weekend in which the stewards have been busy: the FIA also opened investigations after practice into Audi's Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hülkenberg, with no outcome reported at the time of writing.
Hadjar has been in the spotlight in Austin for other reasons too, after his comments about a Ferrari and Verstappen drew strong reactions from Charles Leclerc and Verstappen on Thursday.
