Williams’ brutal decision could pay dividends at the end of the season
How can a multi-million dollar F1 team not come to a race with a spare chassis? The answer lies with their pre-season decision making.
When Alex Albon crashed with 15 minutes to go of the first practice session of the Australian Grand Prix, what should have been a straightforward repair job turned into a headache for Williams.
Albon had effectively wrote off the chassis in the 130mph accident, destroying the gearbox, damaging the power unit, and causing significant damage to the right-hand side. Normally teams bring a spare chassis in case this happens, but it slowly emerged that Williams did not have another FW46 at their disposal.
What followed was a brutal piece of decision-making from Team Principal James Vowles, electing to withdraw Logan Sargeant from the rest of the event in favour of running Albon.
So why then, did a multi-million dollar Formula 1 team not come to a race with a spare chassis in anticipation of bad a crash? The answer goes all the way back to their pre-season.
Williams was the last team to unveil their ‘proper’ 2024 car after running it for a shakedown in Bahrain just before testing. They were purposely cryptic during the car launch season, having only offered a few select members of the media a look at their livery at a season launch in New York. Those that did not attend were given computer renders, which were also not of the proper FW46.
Vowles explained that it was down to the “absolutely enormous” changes they made behind the scenes due to the under-invested facilities both him and Chief Technical Officer Pat Fry have inherited since taking on their respective senior leadership roles.
Williams claims that it is at least 20 years behind its rivals, and during a media roundtable in Bahrain they explained some of the bizarre circumstances they were faced with when revamping the teams car building processes.
F1 cars are made up of around 20,000 individual components, so its important to keep track of every bespoke part thats produced. Teams higher up the grid have special processes and software to keep track of production, but Williams was using Microsoft Excel to list all of these critical components.
This led to a fragmented process and key pieces of data going missing, with team members on the shop floor having to physically look around the factory for certain parts.
If you recall back to 2019, Williams missed the start of pre-season testing and rather embarrassingly turned up with an illegal front suspension and mirrors. Much of this was down to that process, which Vowles set about changing.
“As a result of the work that took place across the winter, we stressed the organisation to the absolute limit. We pushed everything as far as we could do, and what it meant as a result of that is, off the backend of being very late on some of the production, the spare chassis started to move backwards,” said Vowles.
They knew this would bring a certain amount of risk at the start of the season, and it is likely the drivers would have been briefed on the procedure for any drastic measures.
“No team plans to comes to an event without a spare chassis, in doing so you create risk. In the absolute best case, it’s uncomfortable. In the worst case, one of the cars is not racing. That’s the situation we face today,” added Vowles.
Giving Albon his teammates car might sound like Williams has gone back to F1 in the 1950s, but it makes sense from a performance point of view. He has scored 86% of their points since the start of the 2022 season, so he is therefore a safe bet at Albert Park this weekend.
“No team plans to comes to an event without a spare chassis, in doing so you create risk"
Albon came close to achieving this feat in 2023, had it not been for a tyre temperature spike causing him to have a dramatic race-ending crash at Turn 6 - ironically the same place as his FP1 shunt.
It’s telling how magnanimous Sargeant was in his statement, having had his contract renewed late last year it seems Williams was always prepared to take him out of the car should the situation arise.
"This is the hardest moment I can remember in my career and it's absolutely not easy. I am however completely here for the team and will continue to contribute in any way that I can this weekend to maximise what we can do,” said Sargeant.
Long-term decision making
F1 teams fight for points because that means bigger prize money at the end of the season, and Vowles was quick to highlight the net positives that could come from their decision making.
“It's unacceptable in modern day Formula 1 not to have a spare chassis, but it is a reflection of how behind we were in the winter period and an illustration of why we need to go through significant change in order to get ourselves in a better position for the future,” said Vowles.
Since taking over Williams, Vowles has been at the forefront of lobbying for an increase in Capital Expenditure allowance, which is accounted for separately from the optional expenditure allowance in F1’s financial regulations.
The aim was to enable teams that have not invested in their infrastructure over the years to be granted extra money, in turn giving them a chance to reduce to deficit to the bigger teams with better facilities.
F1’s financial regulations previously set a uniform CapEx limit for all teams at $45 million for a four-year period covering 2021-24, which dropped to $36 million for 2022-25.
If you calculate this on a rolling, multi-year basis, this enables teams to front or backload their CapEx spending. The reason for the switch from three years to four years in terms of the total CapEX reporting is due to the cost cap regulations coming into force during 2021.
With some initial reluctance from the teams, Vowles was successful and the changes now allow the four bottom teams (including Haas, Sauber, and RB) to spend $20 million extra on facilities ($65 million overall). McLaren, Alpine and Aston Martin have been given a $13 million raise ($58 million), while Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari have been afforded an extra $6 million ($51 million). This all covers the 2021-24 period.
For the subsequent four-year reporting periods at the end of 2025, 2026, 2027, and 2028, that CapEx limit for Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari is reduced to $42 million. McLaren, Alpine and Aston Martin is at $49 million and Williams, Sauber, Haas and Williams at $56 million. The financial regulations also state that for the reporting period covering 2026-2029, the CapEx limit returns to $36 million for all teams.
According to documents published in Companies House for 2022, Williams recorded significant growth with around a £45 million revenue surge against a £17.9 million loss. Much of this increase in their expenditure has been as a result of the CapEx exemption, which aligns with the teams growth plans.
It represents long-term thinking from Vowles and perhaps puts their decision making in Australia this weekend into context, as they attempt to maximise their chances of scoring points.
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