Brazilian GP: Toughest of days for Williams Racing

By Williams Racing
November 4 2024

The 2024 Brazilian GP would see both Qualifying and the Race moved onto the Sunday due to heavy rain on the Saturday forcing the organisers to abandon any running. So qualifying was run early Sunday morning and it was here that the Williams Racing Team's tough day would begin as we would see Alex Albon crash his car badly damaging it such that he would have to withdraw from the main race. A extremely frustating day for Alex as he felt that there was an opportunity for a points result. Franco Colapinto was left to start the race as the sole Williams car and made a good start and was running just outside the top ten but as the race progressed the rain started to become heavier such that the conditions became even trickier. For Franco given his extremely limited wet weather experience in an F1 car the conditions would catch him out and he was to also crash heavily. So a DNS and a DNF for the team making it a extremely disappointinday in Brazil. On top of this was the added frustration of seeing our WCC rivals move ahead and Williams drop to 9th.


Williams Racing Brazilian Grand Prix



	Franco Colapinto: "I’m very sad for the team after what happened today; it was very tough on everyone, and things didn’t go our way. The team did an amazing job to put my car back on track for the Race after the accident in Qualifying, and so I’m very sorry for them to end the day this way. We had a quick car and were looking to take advantage of any opportunities in the Race. We boxed for Inters, I was pushing to get the tyre temps up, and I just lost the car on one of the big rivers of water on the track. We can and will recover as a team. We still have three races to go, and we’ll come back from this."

	Alex Albon: "It’s obviously a really frustrating day. I can only feel sorry for the team, as I know the damage over the last few weeks has been tremendous and it’s put us in a challenging position for the next three races. It’s no surprise that the last few weeks have been really tough, but I finally felt we’d found our rhythm again and were in a good place; the pace in Qualifying was strong and I felt comfortable with the car. I really didn’t expect the incident in Turn 1 to happen, so we need to take a proper look to figure out what happened. It’s disappointing as it would’ve been a great opportunity to score points, as we knew coming to Brazil there is always a chance for crazy races, however it’s our competitors who’ve been able to capitalise on this. I know it hasn’t been easy for the team, but it’s times like this where we must show resilience and try to find the silver lining. The positives are that the car was quick, and I’ve started to get the right rhythm back, so let’s fight for the last three races and see what happens in the Constructors’ Championship. "

	James Vowles, Team Principal: "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. 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."