Albon out of Sao Paulo GP after qualifying crash

Alex Albon will not take part in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix due to his heavy crash late in Q3 during Sunday morning’s qualifying session. Qualifying was postponed from Saturday due to heavy rain, and took place in wet conditions despite the extremely …

Alex Albon will not take part in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix due to his heavy crash late in Q3 during Sunday morning’s qualifying session.

Qualifying was postponed from Saturday due to heavy rain, and took place in wet conditions despite the extremely early 0730 start time, with multiple crashes delaying it further. Albon had impressed to sit a provisional second on the grid in the closing stages of Q3, but had a big crash at Turn 1 and says he won’t take part in the race as a result.

“I think we had an issue – I know we had an issue, we just need to go through it,” Albon said. “I don’t know. Immediately when I hit the brake pedal there was a beep in my ear which normally means there’s a failure, and then rear locking and a big crash. I mean, that’s us out for the race unfortunately…

“It won’t be fixed.”

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Despite his crash, Albon had still ended up seventh in the classification at the end of qualifying, but once his withdrawal is confirmed all other cars will move up a position. 

Teammate Franco Colapinto was first to crash in Q1 – going off at Turn 3 – and the multiple delays to the session meant it was another hour and a half before Williams could get the car back to analyze the damage on the rookie’s side of the garage. Colapinto, however, will make the race.

“A bit of wheelspin and I lost the rear very aggressively and I couldn’t recover it,” Colapinto said. “First time in the wet and a bit slippery, a bit of a mistake, and I’m very sorry for the guys in the garage. It’s a lot of work, let’s see if we can make it for the race but I’m very sorry for them.”

As well as the two Williams cars, both Aston Martins also sustained heavy damage in crashes, as did Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.

Albon disqualified for floor size infringement at Zandvoort

Alex Albon has lost eighth place on the grid at the Dutch Grand Prix after his Williams car was found to not be compliant with the technical regulations. Williams brought a major upgrade to Zandvoort that included a complete new floor – comprising …

Alex Albon has lost eighth place on the grid at the Dutch Grand Prix after his Williams car was found to not be compliant with the technical regulations.

Williams brought a major upgrade to Zandvoort that included a complete new floor — comprising floor body, floor fences and floor edge — as well as diffuser, sidepods, engine cover and the central air intake. It’s the floor that caught the attention of the FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer, who stated, “The floor body was found to lie outside the regulatory volume mentioned in [the technical regulations],” and referred the matter to the stewards.

After a hearing involving Williams personnel, Albon’s car was excluded from the qualifying results.

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“The team did not dispute the calibration of the FIA measuring system and the measurement of the car, but stated that their own measurements have produced different results.

“The stewards determine that the result of the measurement conducted with the FIA system in Parc Ferme is the relevant one and the due process prescribed by the regulations has been followed. Therefore the standard penalty for such an infringement is applied.”

Albon delivered a strong qualifying performance and had originally been set to line up eighth on the grid, but he will now have to start from the pit lane as the specification of the car will need to be changed to become compliant with the regulations.

All other drivers will move up one position in the classification as a result.

Albon says weight handicap masked strength of Williams car

Alex Albon says Williams had the car to be ahead of Mercedes at the start of this season but for the weight issues it has been facing in 2024. Williams has been working to bring its car down to the weight limit ever since the start of the year, …

Alex Albon says Williams had the car to be ahead of Mercedes at the start of this season but for the weight issues it has been facing in 2024.

Williams has been working to bring its car down to the weight limit ever since the start of the year, having been late delivering the FW46 and then having to divert resources to repairs after a number crashes early on. Further upgrades at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix are also focused on weight saving, and Albon says it’s a problem that has cost the team a chance of significant points.

“It’s the weight, basically!” Albon says about the lack of point-scoring chances this season. “If you look at it from race one, I think pace-wise we could have been likely in front of the Mercedes. We started off the year with a good base, possibly a car that we knew wasn’t going to have many upgrades for a while, but obviously as we were hit by the weight…

“Think of it more like what Haas do — start the year strong but then have fewer upgrades throughout the year. But with the weight, everything was offset so we’re starting from further back than what we expected to be.

“Racing is such a joint effort between team and driver. Last year we had a great car in a lot of races — it was peaky but we were able to score points when it mattered. This year we just haven’t been able to do that, there’s not been enough peaks for us — Monaco being one and Canada being the other. But when you’re handicapped by at some points four or five tenths a lap, especially at the start of the season, there’s not really much chance of scoring points.”

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As the weight saving brings a performance gain that is not dependent on aerodynamic characteristics or getting car setup right, Albon says Williams would certainly have been at the front of the midfield with a car that hit the team’s original weight target.

“If you take the races so far this year, it’s almost a guarantee that we would have been,” he said. “I think now everyone’s starting to bring upgrades as we are getting closer to the target as well, it’s becoming less that case. Of course there’s still lap time in being on target to where we are now, but then again teams like RB have made huge progress — they’re developing very quickly as well. So start of the year, yes [we would have been at the front of the midfield], and now we’re at the early side of halfway, less so.”

Teammate Logan Sargeant looks set to lose his seat at Williams, and Albon adds the weight situation has also penalized the American.

“Obviously there’s no point speaking too soon [about Sargeant’s future]. He’s been doing a great job the last few races, I don’t think it’s really been understood, especially because we aren’t driving the same car,” Albon said. “I think this weekend will be the first weekend where it’s equal, so it has been tough for sure. I think he’s a great driver. He’s got great raw speed. We get on very well.”

Carlos Sainz has been heavily linked with Sargeant’s seat after team principal James Vowels admitted the Spaniard is his priority in terms of available drivers, and Albon admits he’s been kept in the loop with who the team is targeting but has no firm preference.

“Truthfully on my side I’m not so opinionated or fazed around who my teammate is,” he said. “In terms of experience and general developing of the team, of course it would be beneficial. We’re on this long journey, on this long project — we need feedback. I look at myself back from my Red Bull days, and when I joined Williams there were a lot of things that I could bring to the table that I felt were helping my feedback but also the performance of the car.

“To be honest with you, there’s so many names on the list, whoever it may be I think it would generally be a driver with experience that would come in, and then it’s not really my say but it would be important for us. Especially if we want to be fighting in the midfield in the next few years.”

Williams’ foundations have improved markedly – Albon

Alex Albon says the foundations at Williams have improved significantly since he first joined the team in 2022 and convinced him that he should commit his long-term future to the team. Williams has announced a new multi-year contract extension for …

Alex Albon says the foundations at Williams have improved significantly since he first joined the team in 2022 and convinced him that he should commit his long-term future to the team.

Williams has announced a new multi-year contract extension for Albon, taking him into the new era of regulations from 2026 onwards. The Thai-British driver was linked with vacancies at Red Bull and Mercedes after a strong first two seasons at Williams, and despite being yet to score this year, he says the progress he has seen as Dorilton Capital continues to invest — including James Vowles arrival as team principal — convinced him the team has a bright future.

“I believe the journey, that’s where it all comes down to,” Albon said, speaking to Vowles. “I looked at the work being done behind the scenes, and you’ve been very open in where we are. You weren’t ever trying to say it was better than it was, but there was always an action for us to go down, and it was the willingness of the people in the factory who wanted the change.

“So you had the feeling that we’re always going in the right direction, for the last year and a half, two years now, we’ve all been looking at the same kind of forward trajectory. And… when you look at the results to begin the season, it’s was almost like it’s unfair where we are, because there’s so much that has gone right.

“I guess ‘unfair’ is not a great choice (of word) because it’s racing and in the end it’s results based, but I feel like the foundations of this team have improved so much and we are forever evolving that, and I feel that there’s clearly so much room for us now to grow, whereas I didn’t feel necessarily that was the case when I first joined.”

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Albon says there’s an atmosphere within Williams that he hasn’t seen in the same way when racing for Toro Rosso (now RB) and Red Bull in the past, that also made extending his stay attractive.

“It’s the people [that make Williams special]. It’s clear we’re a British team; we’ve established as a family team for many years, and you get that family feeling when you come here. It feels everyone is so intertwined, there’s a real bonding that comes into the team, and everyone who joins — like I did — gets that feeling straight away.

“You feel a sense of care and love around here and with that comes a true care towards the team, a true grit, when we have been falling behind in certain areas. If it was the [crash] damage Logan [Sargeant] and I have created, for example, I think it’s the true love for the team and working for this team that creates a situation where everyone starts to dig deep and achieve things which I don’t believe many teams can.”

Albon signs multi-year contract extension to stay at Williams

Alex Albon has committed his long-term future to Williams by signing a multi-year contract extension with the Formula 1 team. The highly rated Thai-British driver had a contract until the end of 2025 but it was believed to include options that …

Alex Albon has committed his long-term future to Williams by signing a multi-year contract extension with the Formula 1 team.

The highly rated Thai-British driver had a contract until the end of 2025 but it was believed to include options that Williams was open to exercising if it received the right offer for Albon’s services. However, it has now secured Albon through the introduction of the new technical and power unit regulations in 2026, as another piece of the driver market falls into place.

“I am incredibly happy to be remaining with Williams Racing and to continue working with such a talented and dedicated team of people,” Albon said. “It has been a difficult start to the year but since joining Williams we have made significant progress together and I have seen the huge changes happening behind the scenes to take us back to the front of the grid.

“This is a long-term project that I really believe in and want to play a key role in, which is why I have signed a multi-year contract. The journey will take time but I am confident we are building the right team to move forward and achieve great things in the years to come.”

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Team principal James Vowles says the commitment from Albon shows how much belief there is in the rebuilding process that is currently ongoing at Williams, with Vowles himself having only joined at the start of last season.

“We are delighted to secure Alex’s long-term future with Williams Racing,” Vowles said. “He has exceptional talent, technical input and dedication to the cause and this is a huge vote of confidence in Williams and the journey back to competitiveness that we are on.

“Since joining, Alex has consistently demonstrated his ability to perform under pressure, and signing him for the long-term is a big piece of the puzzle of moving us up the grid.”

Williams still has a vacancy for 2025 with Logan Sargeant out of contract at the end of this year and Mercedes young driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli linked with the seat, as Vowles targets a lineup that will remain in place across the regulatory change.

Albon reflects on how latest crash will set back Williams

Alex Albon says the crash he suffered at the start of the Japanese Grand Prix will hurt Williams due to its lack of spare parts and chassis. Daniel Ricciardo moved across as Albon was trying to pull alongside on the run to Turn 3, with the pair …

Alex Albon says the crash he suffered at the start of the Japanese Grand Prix will hurt Williams due to its lack of spare parts and chassis.

Daniel Ricciardo moved across as Albon was trying to pull alongside on the run to Turn 3, with the pair making contact and both hitting the same tire barrier. The damage to the barrier caused a red flag and while Albon was understanding of the decision not to penalize Ricciardo — who was also fighting with Lance Stroll and had a tire disadvantage — he says the impact on Williams could be painful.

“Softs against mediums starting, so (I) had a grip advantage,” Albon said. “Kind of prized the grip I had out of Turn 2 and was able to crawl underneath him and have a good run into Turn 3. It was more about just trying to get him a little bit offline from Turn 3 and try and find a way for 4/5/6/7 to see if I could upset his line a little bit.

“Obviously just one of those things. He didn’t see me, clearly. I tried to back out of it last minute. There was a moment where I realized ‘he hasn’t seen me here’ and the way he’s pulling across, it’s tricky. So I hit the brakes and tried to get out of it. But we’re almost too far alongside him that as I’ve backed out of it, he still was coming across and I couldn’t avoid it.

“It’s no secret that we are having a tough time with it at the moment with the parts we’ve got, and this is gonna hurt us for sure.”

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Williams could only run one car in Melbourne as a result of Albon’s FP1 crash that damaged his chassis, and the team won’t have a spare before Miami. Albon admits he was thinking of the potential repercussions as the crash was unfolding, although Williams team principal James Vowles later told RACER the initial images before the car was returned to the garage suggested the chassis had survived the incident.

“The impact itself was relatively low speed, but it’s the way that I hit the tire wall,” Albon added. “Normally, we have these kind of plastic barriers but this was much more dug in, and it really stops very violently. They’re the questions I’m worried about — not for me, for the car — because that’s where you can do damage. We haven’t had the car back yet, we need to assess it. Hopefully, it’s OK.

“Immediately, as soon as I was before I even hit the wall, it was like, ‘This is exactly what we don’t need.’ We need to assess it and try and come back strong for China.”

Ricciardo escapes penalty after Albon clash

Daniel Ricciardo says he was trying to leave space for a car even though he didn’t see Alex Albon as the pair crashed heavily at the start of the Japanese Grand Prix. Albon was attempting to pull alongside Ricciardo out of Turn 2 on the opening lap …

Daniel Ricciardo says he was trying to leave space for a car even though he didn’t see Alex Albon as the pair crashed heavily at the start of the Japanese Grand Prix.

Albon was attempting to pull alongside Ricciardo out of Turn 2 on the opening lap of the race, but the Australian — starting on mediums and with a pace disadvantage to those on softs — had Lance Stroll to his left. With Ricciardo moving towards the outside of the track before the left-handed Turn 3, Albon tried to back out of the move but his left front made contact with Ricciardo’s right rear. Both cars hit the tire wall heavily, causing a red flag.

“We definitely got gobbled up on that medium,” Ricciardo said. “It was weird because the cars in front of us look like they got off the line well. I guess [George] Russell — and pretty sure everyone in front — was on the medium. So it just looks like Yuki [Tsunoda] and I didn’t have the grip that we anticipated.

“As soon as we launched, I could see [Valtteri] Bottas and [Nico] Hulkenberg just split us and go around. Then into Turn 1, I was in the middle, I think with Yuki and an Alpine sling by. Turn 2 I thought, ‘All right, let’s just settle’ and I soon as I got on the throttle, I was still struggling.

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“Then I think Stroll was on my outside, so I was trying to hold him off. Then I guess as I started to come back for Turn 3, Albon’s there. I watched his onboard, and I don’t even know if he wanted to be there, but his traction was so much better on the soft that he was like, ‘Well, there’s space,’ until there wasn’t, so I didn’t see him.

“But honestly, I always assume maybe someone is there — it’s lap 1 so I never try to use the full width of the track and be completely ignorant. But yeah, I guess there was obviously not enough room.

“All things considered, if we could wind back the clock an hour, I would start on the soft. But for the record, I wanted to be on the medium. That’s not something I fought against. But knowing what we know now the soft would have been a lot better for us.”

The stewards investigated the collision after the race and opted to take no further action, given how many cars were a factor in the incident and the fact it was on the opening lap of the race.

“On the approach to Turn 3, the driver of Car 3 [Ricciardo] noticed Car 18 [Stroll] on his left and stated that he wanted to give that car sufficient room,” the stewards’ decision read. “He stated he then looked to the apex of Turn 3. He did not see Car 23 [Albon] on his right.

“The driver of Car 23 stated that he thought he could overtake Car 3 on the outside, into Turn 3, but then suddenly realized that Car 3 had not seen him, applied the brakes but could not avoid the contact with Car 3.

“Accordingly we determine this to be a first lap incident and decide to take no further action.

“If this incident had occurred on a subsequent lap, or without the presence of the third car (Car 18), a different determination would have been made.”

Albon wants to repay ‘true gentleman’ Sargeant with points in Melbourne

Alex Albon says his best way to pay Logan Sargeant back for taking over his car at the Australian Grand Prix would be to score points from 12th on the grid. Williams did not have a spare chassis available due to manufacturing delays, and when Albon …

Alex Albon says his best way to pay Logan Sargeant back for taking over his car at the Australian Grand Prix would be to score points from 12th on the grid.

Williams did not have a spare chassis available due to manufacturing delays, and when Albon damaged his car in a crash in FP1 it meant only one was available for the rest of the race weekend. The decision was taken to withdraw Sargeant and allow Albon to continue, with the latter securing 12th on the grid to start alongside Lewis Hamilton.

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“It’s a different feeling, a weird feeling, if I’m honest,” Albon said. “It’s one thing making a mistake and the pressure of trying to deliver a performance in qualifying, but it’s another feeling when you’ve been given responsibility — and I take that responsibility, it’s not lost on me — so yeah, it’s tough.

“But at the same time the only thing you can do is focus on your job and put it all behind you and treat the weekend like a normal weekend. We’re obviously a session down but generally that’s all I can really do, and so far we’ve done a good job; just got to keep it going, and the ultimate kind of payback to Logan would be some points.

“Yeah, [points] would be a lovely cherry on the top. We have to be realistic though — I’m next to a Mercedes and I don’t think I’ll see him for too long. Yuki [Tsunoda] is surprising — he’s doing a very strong job in the RB, I think our race is going to be with him. It’s the normal Australia, hopefully three red flags and an opportunity to score some points!”

Sargeant has remained in Melbourne to work with Williams and was present in the garage throughout Saturday’s sessions, with Albon saying his teammate has played a valuable role in helping him recover from Friday’s incident.

“We always chat — we’re very open as a team. I was helping him in FP2 and when the decision was made he was helping me. He’s been a true gentleman; he’s been a true team player in this whole situation. We were talking about FP2, things he liked and didn’t like with the car, similar feedback, so can trust him straight away on it and start FP3 where he left off.”

Racing in the knowledge that another major incident would leave Williams without a usable chassis, Albon insists he hasn’t let it influence how hard he pushes and suggests that the team knew it was likely to be caught out by the lack of a spare chassis at some stage.

“I mean, we’ve been driving like this since race one so it hasn’t changed, and our mindset can’t pull back — you just give it everything. Especially when the midfield is as it is, you can’t leave a percent on the table.

“It’s not how we want to go racing, how I want to go racing, how anyone wants to go racing, but we are in this position. We’ve got to scrap, we’ve got to fight, we’ve obviously put a lot of work and effort and reliance on the factory and it’s been tough. It’s too much, so we’re in a pickle — we’ve been in a pickle since winter testing and it’s catching us up as we knew it would do, so hopefully by China or whenever it’s going to calm down a bit.”

Full faith in Sargeant, but repairs uncertain before Suzuka – Vowles

Williams team principal James Vowles says he has full faith in Logan Sargeant despite giving his car to Alex Albon at the Australian Grand Prix, but cannot guarantee the team will have the second chassis repaired in time for the next race in Japan. …

Williams team principal James Vowles says he has full faith in Logan Sargeant despite giving his car to Alex Albon at the Australian Grand Prix, but cannot guarantee the team will have the second chassis repaired in time for the next race in Japan.

Albon crashed in Friday practice in Melbourne and damaged his chassis to the point it couldn’t be repaired at the track, and is returning to the UK. Unusually at this point in the season, Williams does not yet have a spare chassis manufactured, so the decision was taken to give Sargeant’s car to Albon and withdraw the American from the rest of the race weekend. However, Vowles insists it doesn’t show a lack of faith in Sargeant.

“No, I don’t think that’s the case,” Vowles said. “The fact I re-signed him shows you I have faith in him. This year I think you’ve seen he’s been closer to Alex than before.

“However, I have one car, and just one car. There are five very fast teams taking up those top ten positions and there’s no points apart from if you’re in the top ten. There’s one point separating the bottom five teams at the moment, so every point will make a difference between now and the end of the year.

“In that regard, you therefore put your money on the driver who this year has been slightly ahead of the other one, which is Alex. So I’ve reset everything. Taken a view from Bahrain, taken a view from Saudi and taken a view from here which of the two drivers was more likely to score a point.”

Explaining how Williams ended up without a spare chassis even at the third round of the season, Vowles admits it’s due to the changes he is trying to implement in the team.

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“When I started in February last year, the plan was to have three chassis at round one. As we went through large changes in organization, adding performance and technology changes on the back end and processes, we started to push out fundamentally certain elements of things.

“There’s a finite amount of resources and, as we were going through an inefficient structure and making transformation at the same time, we started to cause problems. Those problems, before, could have translated to adding metal components or adding last year’s rear wings.

“In this particular case, the third chassis started to get delayed and delayed and delayed, and I think one of the things were were transparent about both in Bahrain but also on the BBC podcast that we did, we were very late with these cars — very, very late. We pushed everything to the absolute limit.

“The fallout of that is we didn’t have a spare chassis. Even then it was intended to be coming here at round three, but it got delayed and delayed again as other items got pushed back as a result.

“Without doubt, if we go back to root cause, it’s the fact that we’ve added significant processes. We’ve completely changed how we make a chassis. I think I described it the other week in Bahrain that there’s almost 10 times the amount of parts in a chassis compared to last year.

“That’s a level of complexity that takes an organization to a new level. But the ramifications aren’t [that] the third chassis is any more difficult to make. We’ve already made two. It’s more that the knock-on effect from all the work that we’ve done that pushed everything very late has pushed everything else very late.”

When pushed on if he could guarantee that Williams would have the second chassis repaired in time for the Japanese Grand Prix in two weeks’ time — with the car set to return to the UK on Monday and the third chassis further delayed — Vowles admits there remains an element of uncertainty.

“Until the chassis is back in the UK and they’ve properly inspected it from not just photos that we have, and NDT (non-destructive testing) that we have here, but properly get into it, no one can give you 100 percent certitude.

“What I can tell you is based on the evidence that we have so far and the work that’s completed overnight, everything looks completely feasible. I’ve seen chassis in worse states come back from this. 100 percent is a difficult number to give you, and as a statistics man I wouldn’t say 100 percent, but I would say there is a very high probability it will all be fine.”

Williams withdraws Logan Sargeant after Alex Albon’s crash in Australia

Williams Racing announced that it has withdrawn Logan Sargeant after Alex Albon’s crash in Australia on Friday.

[autotag]Williams Racing[/autotag] has made a shocking decision ahead of the Australian Grand Prix. [autotag]Alex Albon[/autotag], who wrecked his car in practice, will replace [autotag]Logan Sargeant[/autotag] as Williams failed to bring a third chassis to Melbourne. It is a mind-boggling and unfair decision for Sargeant, who lost his ride in Australia for no reason.

Only 19 cars will be in the race in Australia as Albon continues the race weekend in Sargeant’s entry. Formula 1 teams typically have a third chassis in case the original needs to be replaced, but Williams failed to bring one to Australia. What makes this even more confusing is why Sargeant suffers the consequences of Albon’s actions.

Williams understands that Albon has been better and has more experience than Sargeant, but this move goes against the ethics of owning a race team. Hopefully, Sargeant uses this as motivation to improve and perform better. For Albon, he will try to give Williams points in Australia for the championship battles in 2024

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