Williams Team Principal James Vowles admits having to rebuild Alex Albon’s damaged chassis from Australia will “without doubt” be a setback to its development plans.
Albon’s shunt during opening practice at the Albert Park Circuit saw his chassis become unsalvagable at the track and resigned Williams to running one car in the race.
The Grove-based squad has entered the campaign without a spare chassis available, resulting in Logan Sargeant being placed on the sidelines to allow Albon to compete.
Williams has failed to land a point in 2024 and Vowles confessed that the “unacceptable” situation has also put the team on the back foot to recover ground on its rivals.
When asked whether Albon’s crash at Turn 6 had hampered the team’s upgrade intentions, Vowles told Planet F1: “Without doubt, it will do.
“No team plans to not have a third chassis, not in modern-day Formula 1. The last time I had that was in 2009 [with Brawn GP].
“That’s the last time I didn’t have three cars, and we got lucky that year, we could easily have lost the championship as a result of losing a car, you don’t plan to do that.
“It’s simply unacceptable to not have two of your cars out on track next to each other fighting.”
Williams committed to a revamp with its 2024 challenger, the FW46, and cut deadlines fine as it strived to have two runs running from the outset at the opening round.
Vowles concedes that Williams had to sacrifice constructing a spare chassis, with the subsequent rebuild also diverting time and resources from its planned upgrades.
“In the case of what we are doing at the moment. The reason why it’s come about, though, is because we are on the back foot with everything,” he explained.
“As we try and move through processing systems and transformation, something’s being pushed out the back. And in this case, it’s the third chassis.
“So that also means that, as we go through now, we have updates planned and other items planned, but I’m having to divert the entire workforce and getting this chassis in a good state, without losing the momentum we have on the third chassis and on updates, something will give – there’s no doubt about it.”
However, the ex-Mercedes Strategy Director did concede that Williams will head to the high-speed Suzuka circuit without a spare tub for the fourth consecutive round.
