Vowles vows that Williams will not give up until the season finale in Abu Dhabi

On the back of a frustrating and expensive day for Williams, team boss James Vowles reckons that the Grove-based outfit will not give up the fight in the constructors’ championship until the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

Having displayed eye-catching pace in the tricky wet conditions in qualifying at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, Alexander Albon secured a spot in Q3. However, the London-born driver caused the fifth red flag of the session after smashing three corners of his FW46 at Turn 1.

The replays showed that as Albon hit the brakes for the first corner, he lost the rear of his Williams. The Thai driver reported on the radio that his brakes might have failed, but his race engineer answered that he could not see any failure on the data.

Williams confirmed ahead of the 71-lap Sao Paulo race that Albon will not be able to start in Brazil as the short window of time had not allowed for the Thai driver’s FW46 to be repaired.

Albon’s team-mate Franco Colapinto also endured a crash in qualifying, and although Williams managed to repair his car for the race, the Argentinean suffered another big shunt on Lap 32

Although the Argentinian driver fortunately emerged unharmed after hitting the barriers heavily, his second crash on Sunday brought an end to what had been a miserable day for Williams.

Commenting on a frustrating day for Williams, team boss James Vowles noted: “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 this 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.”

Reflecting on the closing stages of the season, Vowles reckons that Williams will not give up the fight in the constructors’ championship despite the difficult situation.

“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, whilst making sure we are still looking ahead towards 2025 and 2026 because that, as I’ve said all along, is where our goal is truly set. It’s all about getting the foundations right as we go towards that 26’ region.

“That doesn’t make today any less painful. Far from it, I’m hurting right now. But actually, I wanted to watch that race to the finish to make sure I remember today because this isn’t what I want us to be feeling in the future.