£2.5m-a-year driver stunned by ‘incredibly bad’ car during Sao Paulo Grand Prix qualifying

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Qualifying for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix may have been delayed overnight due to thunderstorms, but it was well worth the wait for Formula 1 fans.

Lando Norris took pole position with a blisteringly quick lap in Q3, but that only tells a tiny proportion of the story from a wet Interlagos.

For only the second time in the history of Formula 1, five red flags were shown during a qualifying session, with a quarter of the grid finding the barrier.

Williams star Franco Colapinto was the first driver to find the barriers before Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz crashed in Q2.

Aston Martin pair Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso have given their mechanics work to do after they both managed to crash out as well.

However, Alex Albon had the biggest shunt of the quintet, hitting the barriers on the outside of the first corner just as he did after making contact with Kevin Magnussen at last year’s race.

Albon wasn’t happy with his car throughout qualifying despite being provisionally on the front row of the grid in Q3 when the fourth red flag came out for Alonso’s crash.

Alex Albon complains about his Williams during the Sao Paulo Grand Prix before huge crash

Talking on the team radio earlier in the session, Albon said: “You’ve got to help me in Turn 4, I literally can’t do that corner, it’s incredibly bad. It’s locking all fours or what? Rears? Fronts?”

The Thai driver was told by his race engineer that the problem was front locking and while it didn’t appear to be slowing him down, it made the car very difficult to drive.

Talking about Albon’s struggles on Sky Sports F1, pundit Karun Chandhok said: “The Williams looks very stiff, Albon’s head is bobbing around in the cockpit much more than anyone else on this bumpy track surface that we have here.”

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The Thai driver then had his huge accident and assessing the damage, Chandhok added: “Ah, he’s done three corners and I’m pretty sure the gearbox as well.

I mean how many times have we heard James Vowles talking about it this year, tight on cars, tight on parts, it’s towards the end of the season.

“He’s got two broken cars that they’ve got to try and rebuild in the next three hours.

“Glad to hear he’s OK but it seems like he’s lost it under braking because before the corner, he’s into the barrier.

“Remember at the start of the race last year he was in that barrier?”

Alex Albon’s difficult F1 triple-header comes to an end at the Brazilian Grand Prix

Albon – who is reportedly on a £2.5m-a-year contract – won’t look back on the penultimate triple header of the season fondly.

At the United States Grand Prix, Albon watched on as his teammate Colapinto scored a vital point, while he could only finish 16th.

Albon then had a lot of bad luck in Mexico, as he and Yuki Tsunoda collided on the run down to turn one and that caused too much damage for him to continue.

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The Thai driver won’t even get the chance to start the race in Brazil where he had given himself a fantastic opportunity to score points if he could avoid the barriers.

Speaking after the session, Albon believed there was a problem with his car and said: “I know we had an issue. Immediately when I hit the brake pedal there was a beep in my ear which normally means there’s a failure, rear locking, and then a big crash.

“I mean that is us out for the race unfortunately…no it won’t be fixed.”