Williams announces the arrival of its third chassis in Miami
Williams finally has a new chassis, starting from this weekend's Miami Grand Prix, which allows the team to work in better conditions.
As a result of production delays during the winter, Williams started the 2024 championship without a third chassis ready for its drivers, Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant. The situation proved costly at the Australian Grand Prix, where a crash during practice made Albon’s car unusable for the rest of the weekend, forcing the team to make the difficult decision to transfer him to his teammate’s car.
The completion of the third chassis was not made easier by a series of crashes in the last races, but team principal James Vowles has revealed that the situation has now been resolved. He stated at the Fan Zone in Miami: “What I can confirm is that despite all those big accidents we had early in the year, the third car is here and ready to roll.”
Although Williams has taken a step forward with its FW46 this year, the team has not yet scored any points due to an increasingly tight battle at the back of the grid. Vowles, however, believes that his team has not shown all the potential he thinks it has with its 2024 car, progress not having been helped by a series of incidents.
« There are no other words to say it: there is potential but we have not materialized it yet. We have had a number of accidents that have been quite significant. To summarize what happened in Australia and Japan, we lost three floors, three front wings, three rear wings, and three completely destroyed gearboxes. This is usually what you lose in a year, not in two races. »
« As an F1 team, what we try to do is not to build too many similar components, because when you do, you are constantly trying to change them throughout the year. We already have a new front wing now and we will have a new floor in two weeks. »
Vowles believes that with the situation of Williams’ spare parts now under control, the focus can now shift to introducing evolutions that will improve its speed.
« We did not deliver a performance when we should have, we were just trying to rebuild the stock. It’s behind us », he said. « Now, we are off. The beginning of the season was not where we wanted to be. But everything is reset and we are moving forward from now on.
