James Vowles says Williams’ recent spate of accidents will have an impact their potential car performance over the rest of the year.
The team have suffered three significant accidents to their cars over the last six days of grand prix competition across the Australian and Japanese Grand Prix weekends.Alexander Albon damaged his car so badly during practice in Melbourne the team were unable to repair it. They made the controversial decision to give Albon his team mate’s chassis, forcing Logan Sargeant to sit out the race.
Sargeant then crashed during Friday’s practice session at Suzuka last week. Although his car was repaired and able to be raced on Sunday, then Albon crashed out on the opening lap after a collision with Daniel Ricciardo.
Team principal Vowles said Albon’s car will be completely repaired and ready for next week’s fifth round of the championship in China.
“It was a pretty major accident with Alex,” Vowles said in a video published by the team. “The car went into the tyre wall, the deceleration was fairly large. Fortunately, both Alex and Daniel were okay. Accidents like that could end up with an injury and we didn’t have that in that circumstance.
“In terms of the chassis itself, it would have been repairable trackside,” he confirmed. “However, we can do a far better job by sending it here back to the UK. It will be a lighter repair than what we would’ve been to do there and a more complete repair as well. So there is damage, but nothing that we can’t repair and we’ll have the car back in China as a result.”
Williams had installed upgraded parts on both their cars for the Japanese Grand Prix weekend. Vowles said the team would have to completely rebuild replacement parts for the upcoming round in Japan.
“In terms of the accident damage itself, the more significant item is probably that across the last two races, we’ve lost a number of floors, a number of rear wings, a number of front wings,” he explained. “Suspension components, gearboxes have been impacted as well.
“This is a large, large list by any standard and it’s hard to keep up with the amount of spare quantities required at the same time as working as performance updates in the background. We always plan a certain amount of financial attrition from components, but clearly not in two weeks like it is now, but spread rather across the 24-race season.”
Because of the damage and lack of potential data for the new parts acquired from the weekend, Vowles admitted that Williams’ performance later in the season will be affected compared to if the accidents had not happened.
“It will have an impact on what we do performance-wise later on in the year,” he said. “The performance components that we brought forward through hard work to Japan are unfortunately destroyed.
“So again, that puts us on the back foot for performance across the next few races while we build up stock of those again. So a little bit of a short-term, a little bit of a medium-term impact on where we are.”
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MacLeod (@macleod)
12th April 2024, 8:21
Maybe they should buy a new produce machine for carbon ……
Nick T.
12th April 2024, 8:31
Wasn’t this already an article below?
Dan
12th April 2024, 9:25
I also remember reading this quote…?
Dex
12th April 2024, 11:19
And the story itself is kind of well used and familiar already. I understand why they feel the need to recycle content and generate engagement and activate search engine algorithms; but no need to write same twice (as a separate article, no less). Perhaps it’s done by mistake. What would be more fun is to read a critical analysis of the whole situation (and I mean true criticism, without trying to be nice to Vowles or the team), like they did in one podcast for example. In this case, he was just stating the obvious.
Actually, a fun subject would be talking about pay drivers (or those who bring sponsors or attractive nationality, in this case) and the cost of having them (loss of points/prize money, marketability, car damage etc.). I’m talking about the financial side of things. Did Sargeant actually bring more money than he cost them in the (not so) long run?
Of course, Albon had a crash or two as well. But they need him to push, and in his case it means more points at the end of the season (which equals more money, so his damage is well-covered). There’s no comparison there…
Riccard
12th April 2024, 13:22
Obviously hiring an American gives the potential to tap into American fans. But the same goes for every nationality – and historically, being British, German, Italian or Japanese has been a bigger benefit.
Most of the current drivers came from somewhere with a large F1 audience and good funding for young drivers.
Sargeant only just kept his drive last winter and needs to show improvement this year, but that doesn’t make him a pay driver; it just means he’s under pressure.
Nick T.
12th April 2024, 23:50
Americans don’t care if they have an American if they’re not good. And, the demo of Americans that watch F1 is the least driven by nationality of any fan audience.
An Sionnach
13th April 2024, 11:36
I’d speculate that Americans would appreciate an American racing star or home hero in F1. Any top IndyCar driver might do, regardless of nationality. They’d just have to be a winner. Perhaps the trouble is the lack of certainty there, with few successfully crossing over, including Michael Andretti. Still, you would expect that Alex Palou would be less of a risk than Sargeant. The trouble is that for this to work, the star driver needs a star team, so it would have to be a move to Red Bull. No winner will want to change series to a top team with almost no chance of winning a race, let alone the title. That means there might only be a chance for emerging talent that doesn’t mind taking the Williams pay seat. Maybe some day a talented driver with mega banking will appear!
If we have three or four top teams from 2026 that might change, but rules around the super licence would need to change to be less of a joke.
Jere (@jerejj)
12th April 2024, 9:03
The unfortunate but inevitable side effect.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
12th April 2024, 14:07
at least they are still paying fifty times what it cost for a v8 engine, and their paymasters (capital financeees) are still taking a cut.
this team isnt meant to win, its meant to be mocked and slapped around.
usually you think the audience to be the most gullible in the play, but it seems the actors in this part are even worse off. horrible clown show the regs have turned f1 into.
–the team formerly known as williams.
An Sionnach
13th April 2024, 10:25
They could recoup a little of the cost by sticking some of their crashed cars on AutoTrader:
“2024 blue Mercedes. As new. Multifunction steering wheel, front and rear cameras, keyless entry. Comes with three week warranty. No MOT. Genuine reason for selling. £12 million or will exchange for Red Bull. Cash only.”
sam
12th April 2024, 17:38
No more than the driver selection.