Problems again for Williams, which saw Alex Albon crash during the Japanese GP, causing another chassis to be damaged that needs to be repaired.
At the Williams F1 team they are in the corner where the blows fall, when it comes to building a chassis for an F1 car. The team had hoped to start the season quietly with two examples of the chassis of the new car and then build a third example.
But the start of the season has been completely different. First, Alex Albon crashed heavily with his F1 car during a practice session in Australia, after which Logan Sargeant had to hand over his F1 car to Albon. No race for Sargeant who then had to drive the repaired chassis this weekend.
During the practice session in Japan, Sargeant also crashed this time and during the race a crash followed for Alex Albon, which also damaged the chassis. That chassis will now be returned to the Grove factory where it will also require repairs.
The problem is that due to all these repairs, Williams also loses crucial time to build a third chassis, a so-called spare copy. That spare chassis is now not expected until May.
“In terms of the chassis, if you focus all the resources you potentially have within your organization on it, it takes about eight to ten weeks to get the chassis ready,” Williams team boss James Vowles told ‘Motorsport’.com’. “The fact that we as a team do not have a third chassis is annoying, and it was not our intention.”
“In our specific case, we did not intend to be here without a third chassis, the intention was to have three units from the beginning of the year. It is ultimately the result of an overload of work in our system, the complexity of the car and how much work we do to push forward. In terms of complexity, this is enormous. The chassis contains thousands and thousands of parts that you try to put together at the same time.”
Without a third chassis, both Williams drivers will still be under serious pressure in the coming races to ensure that absolutely nothing can go wrong. Not ideal for the performance because something like that obviously also plays a role in the back of your mind. The third chassis will have to wait until May without any further setbacks.
Not the start to the race we wanted pic.twitter.com/CyPoY2jFSU
— Williams Racing (@WilliamsRacing) April 7, 2024