Vowles still can't believe all the accidents Williams has suffered in 2024: 'Never seen such a high number in my career'

If there was one team that couldn't wait for 2024 to end and 2025 to begin, it's Williams. The British team had a very difficult season last year: relegated to 9th place in the Constructors' Championship with just 17 points scored, the English team's 2024 campaign was marked above all by the very numerous accidents suffered during the 24 Grands Prix. In total, These are no less than 17 accidents or collisions that occur throughout the season, sometimes with cars destroyed and long and costly repairs. The most striking example is certainly that of Brazil, where the FW46 was pulverized against the wall three times at the hands ofAlexander albon and Franco Colapinto…

A dark year that prevented Williams from properly developing its mount and which cut short the progress of the British team, forced to look back rather than forward. “It unfortunately defined our season., lamented James Vowles in an interview with Mirror Sport on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last December. We had 17 major accidents in 23 races, a number I have never seen so high in my career. There were accidents that we could do nothing about but accept that they happened. And that is incredibly frustrating. [Qatar] was a good example of that: both our cars were collateral damage, but it cost us dearly.

Volwes and the bad memory of Australia

“The last race [in Qatar], again, was marred by massive damage… that seems to have been the story of our season. Every time we moved forward, we looked back and tried to fix things. That’s the worst thing you can hope for, added the British leader, who confided that his worst memory of 2024 was having left on the sidelines Logan sargeant during the Australian Grand Prix due to lack of spare chassis. At the worst time we had some really bad crashes. I had to make one of the toughest decisions of my career to run just one car. But then you had to make up for lost time and that's unfortunately what defined our season."

If Logan Sargeant, guilty of too many errors and anonymous performances, was replaced during the season by Franco Colapinto, the Argentinian was also guilty of several costly blunders despite a more interesting race pace and a better accounting performance. Now, Williams wants to quickly turn the page on 2024 to write that of 2025, where it will host Carlos Sainz alongside Alexander Albon in order to move up a level in the hierarchy… and, we hope for her, to reduce her carbon fiber bill.

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