In the round-up: Alexander Albon believes Williams missed many points-scoring opportunities early in the season.
In brief
Williams “disappointed”, admits Albon
Williams were held back at the start of their year because their FW46 chassis, says Albon, who scored all four of their points so far.
“I think it’s fair to say we’re a little bit disappointed to where we expected to be,” he said in a video released by the team. “I feel like part of me knows if we were on-weight at the beginning of the year, we would have scored quite a lot of points, I think.
“We’ve just been on the back foot. But the car has been okay. It’s definitely an improvement to last year. But we just had a couple of things hold us back and obviously the delays didn’t help.”
Penske ‘not like Alonso-era Ferrari’ – McLaughlin
Penske driver Scott McLaughlin says his team deserve credit for allowing their drivers to race each other without enforcing orders. He lost victory in Gateway to team mate Josef Newgarden last weekend.“We have some really good fun internally,” he said after the race. “I think what people don’t see is all the engineers behind the scenes working together, making sure we have really good packages. We try different things, we talk about it at the end of each practice day. We have really good camaraderie there between – not only the drivers – but engineers and team management.
“But we all want to win and the best thing about Team Penske is they let us race. It could be just team orders, you just fall in behind. They let us race for the win. I think everyone should appreciate that. It’s not just a Felipe Massa-Fernando Alonso Ferrari moment from [’10], it’s legit racing.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Links
Ferrari is reported to be considering a switch from push rod suspension to pull rod next year after the problems it encountered with porpoising this year.
Meyer Shank shifts IndyCar alliance from Andretti to Ganassi (Racer)
'The multi-year arrangement will see the team co-owned by Mike Shank and Jim Meyer receive full technical support the reigning Honda-powered IndyCar champions who will supply complete engineering staffs for the number 60 and 66 Hondas, set-up information for both cars, dampers, data from CGR’s drivers, and have MSR’s drivers participate in group debriefs with six-times champion Scott Dixon, two-times champion and current championship leader Alex Palou, and the rest of CGR’s roster.'
Would you rather with Paul Aron (F2)
'I’ve started to enjoy the late-braking dives to the inside so I’m going for that one. I think throughout your junior career, there’s more around-the-outside moves than down the inside because in the lower categories, you’re not saving as much in braking, so it’s hard to dive late. But in F2, the braking distances are longer so you have more opportunities to send it from far back and it’s quite a nice feeling if you do it.'
Remembering Anthoine Hubert - Five years on (Alpine via YouTube)
We always endeavour to credit original sources. Got a tip for a link relating to single-seater motorsport? Please send it to us via the contact form.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Social media
Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
We had a good one going, only for nothing in the end. The good news from last night is my Christmas card list got shorter by at least two, maybe three. We will see how I feel come December. pic.twitter.com/upIYv2Yk2q
— Alexander Rossi (@AlexanderRossi) August 18, 2024
Exactly 115 years ago at 1130am, @IMS hosted its first car race! It was 5 miles or two laps! Completed at 57.43 mph! Louis Schwitzer picked up the victory in a Stoddard-Dayton! The day included 4 more events! Main gate tickets were $1. East gate 50 cents. Soda was 10 cents.
— J. Douglas Boles (@jdouglas4) August 19, 2024
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
Formula 1 is wedded to introducing ‘sustainable’ fuels from 2026 but some question whether they are the silver bullet others claim them to be.
The main reason oil and gas countries are pushing ‘sustainable fuels’ is because they use the same infrastructure as petrol and diesel… so you can sound good and look busy while still using oil and diesel for the foreseeable future. That doesn’t get the planet anywhere!
There may be a case for these fuels in air travel because you need a certain level of energy per kilo to fly, but apart from that, they are mostly an excuse for inaction.
Riccard
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Woffin, Kozo.Higashi and Strontium!
Newsletter
Don’t miss any of our RaceFans’ motorsport coverage! Get a daily update in your inbox – sign up for the free RaceFans email Newsletter here:
SteveR (@stever)
20th August 2024, 1:49
So how much overweight was the Williams? 5 kg, 10 kg, 20 kg, 30 kg? Until we know what that number it’s impossible to judge the weight statement.
Mark (@mrcento)
20th August 2024, 2:11
According to James Vowels, Who has never given an exact weight figure but has given a time figure, it can be worked out at around 15kg or thereabouts. Launch spec of the car was apparently nearly 30kg overweight.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
20th August 2024, 10:45
Until George / Mercedes / Spa happened, I was broadly of the assumption that everyone was overweight and has been for sometime, or at least compromising aero because of weight. I don’t really know how I came to this conclusion, gradually probably, watching F1 weight limits edge closer to 1 US ton. I thought nobody was carrying ballast for the car.
If Williams are carrying an extra 15kg. That feels like a lot. *I like kilos. It’s a British bag of Tate & Lyle sugar from my childhood. Carrying 15 of them in an F1 car feels like a big disadvantage. I wonder if RB are on the weight limit? Yuki could be several bags of sugar lighter than Daniel. He’s got a super license and he can reach the pedals, maybe Williams should have looked to hiring him instead of Carlos. I know F1 drivers need to come up to a minimum weight, but presumably Yuki can strategically place his ‘driver ballast’ where it works best on the car, rather than necessarily the cockpit?
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
20th August 2024, 18:14
@bernasaurus Driver and seat are weighed together and have a combined minimum weight of I think 80kg just now, increasing to 82kg for next year? Something like that, there was an article recently where the tall drivers were praising the increased allowance. Anyway, whatever the exact figure, the best Yuki can do is have the extra weight at the base of the seat, rather than distributed across the body at higher level. Though, there are also packaging advantages to the smaller driver which are probably more significant than the weight distribution advantage.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
21st August 2024, 6:47
@keithdin I didn’t know the ballast had to be in the seat. Makes a lot of sense. Thank you.
SteveR (@stever)
20th August 2024, 1:50
‘what that number is’. An editing feature would be nise…….
SteveP
20th August 2024, 19:27
Nice twist, I see what you did there.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
21st August 2024, 19:01
ooooo aaaaa eeeee iiiiiii ? uuuuu ? y ?
its clear why Williams aren’t scoring points, its because they lack real grit / leadership. Mr. Vowels is making excuses, trying to paper over reality. It takes excellence not mediocrity to take it to the top of the mountain. If he had half the metal Christian Horner had, he would be ahead of HAAS. but alas, he has not. Metal comes from places no one WANTS to go, and perhaps its too late in life for James to figure that one out.
Jere (@jerejj)
20th August 2024, 6:22
Not necessarily, given general midfield tightness.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
20th August 2024, 12:05
@jerejj Surely the tightness of the midfield would make it more likely that any significant performance gain would further increase your chance of scoring points? If the entire ‘midfield’ from the 5th team back is only covered by say 0.4 seconds, then a performance gain of say 0.3 seconds would take you from rarely having a chance to score points, to being in the fight for points every weekend. I feel like that’s where Williams have been most of this season – just at the back of a tightly packed field of 4 teams – Aston, RB, Haas, Williams – with the top 4 being out of reach, and Stake being behind. All other things being equal, if they had a pure weight saving of around 30kg from the start of the season, then they could have been at the front of that pack rather than the back.
Deerhunter
20th August 2024, 6:53
Funny, but it feels like I’ve read almost that exact same headline with regards to Ferrari’s suspension problems back in 2012.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
20th August 2024, 8:26
Well, as this is the teams own problem, it’s a bit like sauber saying they would have scored points if they didn’t have numorous slow pit stops.
Laz
20th August 2024, 8:30
If the car wasn’t overweight then they would have focused on that instead of developing the aero, they made choice based on budget for what was best to target. The only thing that can be said is if Albon hadn’t crashed in Australia, been taken out in Japan or Logan in Miami, then yes they would have been able to reduce the weight sooner rather than spending on rebuilding totalled car. But it still would not have yielded many more points regardless. They’re still behind VCARB and AM in pace both who had failed upgrades in that time while Williams reduced the weight, then Haas also introduced a good upgrade and looked comfortably faster than Williams in both Austria and Britian. So it really doesn’t look like they would have pulled ahead and scored more points no matter how you cut it.
Nick T.
20th August 2024, 23:58
And if Alpine had as much power as the Honda, they might be competing with Ferrari and Mercedes. But they don’t. So, no point in bringing it up. It’d make more sense to say the car has a lot of low hanging fruit in terms of performance gains.
Nikos (@exeviolthor)
21st August 2024, 8:13
I would have scored quite a lot of girls if I wasn’t overweight.
ferrox glideh (@ferrox-glideh)
21st August 2024, 14:11
Isn’t it pretty to think so? :)
Nick T.
22nd August 2024, 2:52
Damn straight you would have.