James Vowles reveals recent crashes cost Williams a jaw-dropping seven-figure sum
James Vowles reveals eye-watering repair bill for Williams after recent heavy crashes.
Williams F1 boss James Vowles has estimated that recent crashes resulted in a repair bill of several million dollars for his team.
The Grove-based outfit suffered back-to-back bruising events with five major shunts for drivers Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto across the past two races in Mexico and Brazil.
Albon was unable to take part in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix after a massive crash in qualifying meant his car could not be repaired in time. Teammate Colapinto also suffered hefty accidents in both qualifying and the main race.
The damage left Williams sweating on spare parts ahead of the final three races of the season and Vowles has now revealed the financial burden felt by the team.
"You are into the millions - less than 10 but more than three. It's big numbers when you calculate where we are at the moment,” Vowles told ESPN at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
"The sustained damage we had across Mexico and Brazil, I hadn't experienced anything like that in 25 years of working in the sport - to have five major accidents [in two races]. It's hard to apportion fault or otherwise to it, that's just motor racing, but five…
"That took out five front wings, five floors, five rear wings, three gearboxes, two engines, two chassis. An amount that you just can't believe.”
Vowles praised the “gargantuan” effort from his team throughout the break between Mexico and Las Vegas to get both Williams cars fixed to the same specification.
"To turn that around to have here in Las Vegas two cars completely updated on the right specification - albeit not with a huge amount of spares behind that - it's not just a huge effort, it's a gargantuan effort of the whole team pulling together,” he explained.
"What I'm proud of is, in this moment when you really are down, you're on your knees and kicked in the stomach, the team rose up stronger than it was before and wanted to come here and prove to the world that we are still here and fight for everything we can fight until the end of the championship.
“It was a proud moment to be leading the team in that moment."
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