Williams forced to “take away a little bit from next year’s cost cap” after recent crashes

Williams team boss James Vowles has revealed that the Grove-based squad has been forced to take away “a little bit from next year’s cost cap” after the series of crashes in the last three rounds.

Williams have endured three very difficult races at Sao Paulo, Las Vegas and Qatar. 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.

Although Williams was eager to repair his car for the race, Albon was unable to take part in the 71-lap race at Sao Paulo following the significant damage his car suffered during the incident.

Albon’s team-mate Franco Colapinto also sustained a high-speed crash, but Williams was able to fix his FW46 for the race and the Argentine driver was able to compete in this rainy Sao Paulo Grand Prix. However, Colapinto suffered a second crash in the race, which saw the team leave Brazil with two heavily-damaged cars.

The Grove-based squad was able to repair both cars for the Las Vegas Grand Prix. However, it endured a mixed start to its qualifying after Albon got eliminated in Q1. However, his team-mate Colapinto made it through to Q2 and was aiming for the top-10 shootout when he struck the inside wall at Turn 16 and slammed into the barrier on the other side of the track.

Last weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix saw Williams endure another tough time, with both drivers retiring from action in the 57-lap Lusail race.

Asked to comment on Williams’s current situation, Vowles has revealed that the Grove-based outfit had to take unplanned steps in a bid to get the cars ready for the races after recent crashes.

“I think teams aren’t built to take, what is it, six major crashes. Generally speaking, we’ll hold a stock of parts that’s about four, maybe five of each component. That’s about where you want to be. And so it doesn’t take long to figure out that once you crash five or six of them, you’re in trouble. Huge effort by both the trackside team and those in the factory.

“I’ve had people that are part-time or even on shift work just asking what more can they do to come in and do it. And that’s an incredible feeling when you’re part of an organisation that goes above and beyond to make sure we have two racing cars on the grid every week.

“It’s a distraction away from ‘25, there’s no doubt about it. Not so much from ‘26, but you have to pull your effort into just making sure you’re here on track fighting with your competitors around you.

Pushed on to reveal what the mid to long-term ramifications of the crashes are in terms of the cost cap, Vowles has acknowledged that Williams has been forced to spend resources from next year’s cost car in a bid to manufacturer spare parts.

“You’re effectively just moving elements around from what you can do. No one here would have accounted, I hope anyway, for this amount of attrition this late on in the season. So the implication is you have to take a little bit away from next year’s cost cap. That’s the frustration behind it.

“You’re moving things around. But to a certain extent as well… What’s the implication? We have elements that we’re fixing for the long term, which is around process structure, infrastructure. It doesn’t hinder any of those. And those are the big gains.

“What we’re talking about is a few hundreds of thousands that I wish we weren’t spending this year that we could spend next year,” concluded the Briton.