Williams ‘hurting’ as team counts the huge cost of three Brazilian GP crashes

Formula 1 recorded its biggest crash damage bill of the 2024 championship in Brazil, the grand total standings at over €5 million, and almost half of that belonged to Williams.

As the rain bucketed down at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace, qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix was delayed to Sunday but with more rain forecast, it was always going to be a bit wild.

Williams recorded three big crashes on the Sunday in Brazil

But chaotic turned out to be the better description.

Five drivers crashed in Sunday morning’s qualifying with Franco Colapinto the first into the barriers while Carlos Sainz, Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso also couldn’t keep their cars on the track.

The hardest hit though was Alex Albon’s as he lost it on the rundown to Turn 1 and hit the barrier hard with the front left. That spun the car around and he hit again with the rear before bouncing off the barrier such was the force of the impact. Bits of carbon fibre, the rear of the car shattered, the sidepods not faring much better, and the front left wheel hanging on by its teether.

Causing over €800,000 worth of damage according to F1Maximal.nl, Williams did not have the time to fix Albon’s “extensive damage” and he was forced to sit out the race.

The team did repair Colapinto’s car in time but alas his race ended on lap 32 when he crashed while the field was running behind the Safety Car. He lost control of the Williams in the wet, spun and hit the barrier with the front left of his car.

His tally went from one front wing and nose, rear wing, front suspension, rear suspension to double while the FW46’s sidepods were also damaged. All in all, approximately €1,490,200.

On a weekend in which the entire field racked up a reported €5,030,800 in repair bills, Williams’ alone was €2,296,800.

F1 2024: Team-mate head-to-head stats

👉F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates

👉F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Colapinto’s second crash capped a disastrous weekend for Williams with team principal James Vowles revealing there is a lot of work ahead to make sure they have enough parts to go racing in Las Vegas.

“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,” Vowles said.

“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.

“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.”

But it was just the parts or the cost that hurt, Williams’ rival Alpine shot up from ninth in the Constructors’ Championship to sixth as they outscored everyone with a double podium that could net the French team €30m in prize money.

Williams dropped from eighth to ninth.

“Our rivals, Alpine, were quick in the race, no doubt about it,” Vowles said. “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 ninth.

“I never give up until it’s time to give up and that won’t be until we’re in Abu Dhabi and the chequered flag has dropped. We have two fast drivers, and we have a fast car underneath us.”