James Vowles, the boss of Williams F1, estimated that recent accidents had cost his team several million dollars in repairs, at least 3.
To this we must add the crash in qualifying a few minutes ago of Franco Colapinto, who once again destroyed a complete FW46 in Q2, by going too much inside a corner with a wall, which propelled him on the opposite wall.
“No comment !” said Vowles after this new accident today.
The Grove-based team has mostly had back-to-back crashes with five major crashes for drivers Alex Albon and Colapinto over the last two races in Mexico and Brazil.
Albon was unable to compete in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix after a massive crash in qualifying prevented his car from being repaired in time. His teammate also suffered serious accidents in qualifying and the main race.
The damage left Williams struggling to find spare parts ahead of the final three races of the season and Vowles has now revealed the financial burden on the team. Not to mention today's accident.
“We are talking about millions of euros – less than 10 but well over 3. These are important figures when you calculate where we are now,” Vowles told the media before today's accident in Q2.
“The damage in Mexico and Brazil, I've never seen anything like that in 25 years of working in the sport – to have five major accidents in two races. It's difficult to assign fault or whatever, it's just motorsport, but five…”
“This lost five front wings, five floors, five rear wings, three gearboxes, two engines, two chassis. An incredible number.”
Vowles praised his team's “gargantuan” effort throughout the break between Mexico and Las Vegas to get both Williams cars repaired to the same specification.
“To reverse the trend and have two cars here in Las Vegas that are fully updated to the right specifications – even if they don't have a huge amount of aftermarket parts – it's not only a huge effort, it's “It's a gargantuan effort from the entire team that came together.”
“What I'm proud of is that in that moment, when you're really at your lowest, on your knees and punched in the gut, the team rose up stronger than before and wanted to come here and prove to the world that we are still here and that we are fighting for everything we can until the end of the championship.”
“It was a proud moment to lead the team at that time.”
Vowles does not yet know if Colapinto will be able to start tomorrow.
“It seems very difficult to me, the team will have to manage it again, it’s complicated…”
