Last weekend Williams found itself unable to compete with just one single-seater in the Australian Grand Prix due to an accident involving Alexander Albon in which he damaged the chassis of his FW46.
The team thus found itself able to run the race with only Albon after passing Logan Sargeant's chassis to the Thai with the specific intent of trying to collect a point. Mission then failed. The lack of a third chassis, the spare one, made enthusiasts and professionals turn up their noses: it is strange that a Formula 1 team approaches the first races of the season without a spare chassis.
Williams immediately got to work sending the damaged chassis to Grove for repairs after inspecting it in Melbourne thanks to a system that shortened the time between damage assessment and repair.
“I'm confident that we will be able to repair the chassis,” said Williams team principal James Vowles. “We put measures in place to make sure the chassis got back to Grove very early on Monday morning, I think it arrived around 2am. We already had our guys on site working to dismantle and repair it.”
“We are in a good position to have the chassis back soon enough for Suzuka. Photographs were taken in Melbourne and techniques called NDT, or non-destructive testing, were used. This allows us to understand how bad the damage is and what we need to do And the preparation was fundamental.”
“The result was that we were able to start work as early as 2 in the morning on Monday. This means that in Suzuka we will have two single-seaters to deploy without problems.”
Vowles also announced a slight delay in the arrival of the long-awaited third chassis due to the repairs involving the team in Grove. This should even arrive after the Chinese Grand Prix.
“The original plan for the start of the season was to have three chassis, as would be normal to expect at the first round of the season. From then, especially with the work we are doing on chassis number 2, there will still be a small delay.”
“It involves thousands of hours spent on composite materials to prepare it. It is one of the most important jobs for an F1 team. We will soon have the third chassis. In the meantime, however, we will have to deal with the circumstances that we will encounter on our way “, Vowles concluded.
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