The recent run of major crashes has led the Williams Formula 1 team to split the specification of its cars for the last two races, with Franco Colapinto obliged to run an earlier version.
The team introduced a front suspension upgrade at the Singapore GP, along with associated brake ducts.
After Colapinto’s heavy qualifying crash in Las Vegas he reverted to the older brake ducts as part of the effort to build up the spare car for his pitlane start.
After six major crashes for Alex Albon and Colapinto across the Mexican, Brazil and Las Vegas weekends the team does not have enough examples of the revised front suspension to provide both drivers with a raceable set and a spare.
It was thus decided that Albon should stick with the Singapore suspension upgrade while Colapinto goes back to the previous version in order to ensure that both drivers have a back-up should they have another accident.
It’s understood that the older spec leaves Colapinto at a 2.5kgs disadvantage to his Williams team mate.
“My car is not going to be in the last spec,” he said when asked by AutoRacer.it about prospects for the Qatar weekend. “So that’s already a point where you don’t want to start like that already the weekend, but it’s part of it.
“So you’re going have to live with that, the old upgrades in the car. We are going to see how it goes. We’re going try to understand quickly the car, what it does, what we need from this different suspension, and we’re going to try to maximise what we have.”
Expanding on the changes for Qatar he said: “There aren’t enough parts. So it’s part of the crashes we’ve been having the last two races.
“We are changing the suspension, the front suspension is different. So that’s the old spec, and some other things. But that’s what it is, and we have to deal with that, and try to our best to maximise the car.”
Meanwhile Albon conceded that 2024 has been a difficult season for Williams.
“I think it’s a known story now,” said the Thai/British driver. “The car wasn’t on weight and we were on the back foot from the beginning, and then we missed out on capitalising when we should have.
“Teams like Alpine, they’re on their third, fourth upgrade now. We did one major one, I would say, this year, and let’s say where we are now is kind of expected in terms of pace. but I think we’ve just missed out a little bit.
“All for good reasons, though. I really think that a lot of the reasons why we’ve been on the back foot is just because we’ve made so many big changes back at Grove, which are going to help us definitely in the future, but possibly a little bit of short-term pain for now.”
