Williams F1 boss faces awkward ‘drivers keep crashing’ question

Williams F1 team principal James Vowles was put in an awkward spot when he faced a difficult question about his drivers’ recent crashes.

Alex Albon’s huge crash during practice in Australia resulted in Williams making the controversial decision to sacrifice Logan Sargeant’s weekend in order to give his teammate his car due to the team having no spare chassis.

With a spare chassis not expected to be ready until next month’s Miami Grand Prix at the earliest, Williams could face a repeat of their Melbourne nightmare if either Albon or Sargeant damage their cars beyond repair at the next two races.

Williams had a scare on Friday at the Japanese Grand Prix when Sargeant suffered a high-speed crash during first practice and was ruled out of participating in the second session, which ended up being a washout.

After the incident, Sky’s pitlane reporter Ted Kravitz asked Vowles why his drivers “keep crashing”.

“It’s a strong question – one to ask the drivers,” Vowles responded.

“But when you see the midfield at the moment, it's incredibly tight, what we are asking of the drivers is to be absolutely on the limit to get everything out of it.

“There’s no margin for error fundamentally in terms of performance. I don't think the car has any ill-handling characteristics.

"It's a sore statistic that we are generating as many red flags as we are and clearly it affects future programmes, so we have to get on top of that.”

Sargeant admitted his crash was a “silly mistake” but Vowles insists the accident wasn’t a result of the 23-year-old American missing a weekend

"At the top of the brow of the hill there, he struggled to see where his positioning was on track," Vowles said.

"So it fundamentally looks like he didn't quite realise where he was with where the grass was on the outside and put a wheel on the grass.”

Vowles added: "I've been chatting to him all week, all these last few weeks, in fact, because this is the point where you've got to keep a driver very close to you. You’ve sort of given them a very difficult situation to deal with, through no fault of their own.

"But he was honestly in a very good state of mind this week and last night again when I called him, a really, really strong state of mind, just wanted to get back into the car and get going, but not with the intention of proving to the world he deserves a seat, just his normal approach to things.

"And what you saw here wasn't a driver making a mistake because I think they were pushing to the limit. It's a very different type of mistake, a frustrating one by all accounts, because it wasn't on the limit of what the car could do.

“There was far more turning potential in there. He just didn't know where the car was on track relative to where he expected it to be anyway.

"So I don't think you're seeing there the reaction of someone that wasn't driving in Melbourne. I think you're seeing more just a situation that could have appeared at any time."