Franco Colapinto couldn’t do much in his F1 Brazil GP crash, as Alexnader Albon rued missing out in the race and James Vowles admits crunch time for Williams.
It was a disaster in the end for Williams in F1 Brazil GP. Not only they were beaten by Alpine in the standings, they had three major incidents in a space of few hours to go with couple other in previous events. It has wrecked its budget and put them on the backfoot in terms of spare parts for the remainder of 2024.
It started with double crash for Colapinto and Albon in Sunday’s early morning qualifying. While they could fix up the Argentine’s car, it wasn’t the case for the Thai’s, whose car had extensive damage. He missed the grand prix start unlike his teammate.
With heavy rain falling post the pit stop, Colapinto ran over a puddle of water in the final corner and crashed out to create a red flag situation. The Argentine was visibly upset and pretty low on energy after suffering two crashes in a space of hours – he was physically fine and did not complain of any injury.
Even though it was his first time in wet conditions, it proved costly for Williams. “It was difficult, a tough weekend,” said Colpainto to media. “I’m very sad for the team after what happened; it was very tough on everyone, and things didn’t go our way. The team did an amazing job to put my car back on track for the Race after the accident in Qualifying, and so I’m very sorry for them to end the day this way.
“We had a quick car and were looking to take advantage of any opportunities in the Race. We boxed for Inters, I was pushing to get the tyre temps up, and I just lost the car on one of the big rivers of water on the track. We can and will recover as a team,” summed up Colpainto.
Teammate Albon was equally disappointed. “It’s obviously a really frustrating day,” he said. “I can only feel sorry for the team, as I know the damage over the last few weeks has been tremendous and it’s put us in a challenging position for the next three races. It’s no surprise that the last few weeks have been really tough.
“But I finally felt we’d found our rhythm again and were in a good place; the pace in Qualifying was strong and I felt comfortable with the car. I really didn’t expect the incident in Turn 1 to happen, so we need to take a proper look to figure out what happened.
“It’s disappointing as it would’ve been a great opportunity to score points, as we knew coming to Brazil there is always a chance for crazy races, however it’s our competitors who’ve been able to capitalise on this. I know it hasn’t been easy for the team, but it’s times like this where we must show resilience and try to find the silver lining.
“The positives are that the car was quick, and I’ve started to get the right rhythm back, so let’s fight for the last three races and see what happens in the Constructors’ Championship,” summed up Albon. For team boss Vowles, it was a total disaster, especially on the financial front.
They have to get both the cars fixed for the last triple-header, but there is certainly shortage of spare parts considering the earlier crashes and end of the season situation. He termed the weekend as brutal and one which is hard to digest. “The Brazil weekend was probably the most brutal that I can remember across my entire career,” said Vowles.
“In the space of seven days, a little more than, we had five major accidents. That’s an amount that near enough no one can sustain on the grid. The nature of Formula 1 is that you can have some of the most incredible feelings and results, as well as some of the lowest moments that you can feel within a sport.
“I think it’s fair to say the weekend is the second of those two. We’ve had three incredibly large crashes in just a few hours from one another and have a tremendous amount of work to get ourselves back on top of our spares situation before we go to Las Vegas in just a few weeks’ time.
“Yes, it’s painful what happened last weekend, but it hasn’t changed what our destination is. In fact, it’s rooted me even further more to the fact of what we have to do to achieve it is significant, but we can achieve it together as a team. There’s no team on the grid that can cope with five major accidents in two race weekends.
“Simply the matter of spares we carry are not sufficient to carry that amount of attrition. Vegas, I have high hopes for. We were fast there last year, and I’m confident the car will work well in those conditions. So we will do our absolute utmost to get two cars to the best specification they can be, with sufficient spares around us to make that happen.
“What that looks like is difficult to predict. We’re still getting the items back from Brazil and determining what we have to do in terms of construct and build in order to give ourselves the best possible scenario. Our rivals, Alpine, were quick in the race. No doubt about it. They deserved those positions, but they scored a huge bag of points putting them back up into a very high Championship position and demoting us back down to 9th.
“I never give up until it’s time to give up and that won’t be until we’re in Abu Dhabi and the checkered flag has dropped. We have two fast drivers, and we have a fast car underneath us. We must go to every single one of these weekends now and deliver everything possible,” summed up Vowles.
Here’s crash for Alexander Albon: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-sao-paulo-gp-qualifying-big-crash-for-albon-brings-out-the-red-flags-again.1814706192002220178
Here’s crash for Franco Colapinto: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-sao-paulo-grand-prix-race-red-flagged-as-colapinto-crashes-out.1814721406766672689
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