Sunday was a day of temporary highs, and bitter lows, for Williams at the Formula 1 São Paulo Grand Prix.
With qualifying pushed to Sunday morning due to weather, getting things right was a challenge for all ten teams as wet weather lingered at Interlagos. An early victim of the weather conditions? Young Franco Colapinto, who crashed in Q1 and forced the team to race against the clock to get his FW46 ready for the start of the race.
Teammate Alexander Albon forged on, storming into Q3. For a moment, Albon was provisionally on the front row, with a time good for second behind Lando Norris. But that high was temporary, as Albon suffered a snap into Turn 1, and careened wildly into the barrier.
Not only was Albon out of qualifying, but he was unable to start the Grand Prix itself.
Colapinto was able to start the São Paulo Grand Prix, but his day came to an early end when he spun under a yellow flag, causing yet more damage to his FW46.
A long day with an early, and bitter, end for the team.
“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,” said Team Principal James Vowles in the team’s post-race report. “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.”
Complicating matters for Williams? Their struggles came on a tremendous weekend for Alpine, their rivals for eighth in the Constructors’ Championship. Vowles and company watched as Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly delivered a stunning double-podium for Alpine, the first for the Enstone-based operation since 2013, when they were racing under the Lotus branding.
That result vaulted Alpine into sixth in the Constructors’ Championship, dropping Williams to ninth.
”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,” added Vowles. “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.”
Vowles made it clear: While Sunday was painful, he believes better days lie ahead for Williams.
”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,” added Vowles. “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.”
