Albon’s car flown to UK for damage assessment ahead of Chinese GP

Alex Albon’s opening lap incident at the Japanese Grand Prix marks the third major accident this season for the already low-on-resources Williams team, prompting a long-haul flight back to the UK for Albon’s FW46 to allow the team to conduct a thorough damage assessment ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix.

Starting the Japanese Grand Prix from P14, Alex Albon had a lot of ground to make up if he were to successfully score Williams their first point of the season come the chequered flag.

Having elected to take the start on the soft compound tyre, the Thai driver had a lot more grip than the medium runners ahead, specifically Daniel Ricciardo.

At Turn 2, Ricciardo admittedly struggled with grip, taking notice of Albon’s tyre advantage into Turn 3 once he’d had time to reflect on the onboard footage.

In the moment, however, the Australian’s focus was on the Aston Martin to the left of his RB as opposed to Albon on his right.

“Had, not a great start, but obviously a bit better than the medium tyres,” Albon said.

“I had good traction coming out of Turn 2, but yeah, that was it really.

“I don’t think Daniel [Ricciardo] saw me and then it was just a bit of a pinching moment, so I tried to back out of it but I couldn’t quite get out of the way quick enough.”

The #23 looked for an optimistic move down the outside, running onto the grass in an attempt to avoid a closing-in Ricciardo.

The duo made slight contact, sending the two cars spinning into the barriers at Turn 3 and spearing ahead at the tyre wall, lying there in a cloud of dust.

Alex Albon after his opening lap crash in Japan. Image: Formula 1.

At the time, Albon seemed worried about the extent of damage sustained by his FW46 after making such heavy contact with the jumbled barrier.

“The way the tyre [from the barrier] went under the car, it ripped the car, so the car went from a good amount of speed to zero really quickly, I’m just worried,” Albon said.

“I didn’t get a good look at it because it’s under the tyres, but hopefully it’s okay.”

Both drivers were ok, with the extent of the damage to their cars, and the Williams in particular, now the main concern ahead of F1’s trip to China in two weeks. 

“It was a tough one to take,” the Thai driver said.

“Obviously we’re not in a great position as a team with parts and just general damage for the cars, so yeah, it’s very frustrating… just disappointing, really.

“We need to bounce back and get ready for China.”

Speaking to the media following the accident yesterday, Williams Team Principal James Vowles confirmed that the car would be heading back to Williams’ home base at Grove before moving on to Shanghai.

“They’ve taken some pictures of it,” Vowles said.

“Let’s see how bad it is when we get the [car back to the factory]. 

“It looks like it’s repairable to me, but that was through images taken.”

The cars of Daniel Ricciardo and Alex Albon in the tyre barrier after they crashed on the opening lap. Image: Zak Mauger / LAT Images.

The Williams Team Principal also confirmed that the upgraded aero-package Albon had been running in Japan was lost in the accident, further delaying their planned rollout of upgrades this season. 

“The updates that were on the car unfortunately are broken, so we’ve got to build those stocks back up and get going again.”

“We’re making spares as quickly as possible in the background, but ultimately performance will have an impact on it, we can’t bring as many updates [later in the year].” 

After only being able to run one car in the Australian Grand Prix, it is unlikely that this will be the case in China with Vowles assuring that the damage looks “reparable” for the “resilient” team. 

“I think take any team, to have three major accidents where you’ve pretty much taken out all equipment on the car is enormous,” he said.

“Taking that across a season, you can deal with it, taking it across just a few races is difficult. The impact of it will be what you expect.

“It’s incredibly tight, all the way from basically RB, from us to Alpine – there’s nothing between those teams.

“The encouragement I take is that we’re going to pick ourselves back up, come to China and come back swinging.”

The Chinese Grand Prix weekend kicks off across the 19th to 21st of April, with Sunday’s main event taking place at 5:00 PM, AEST.

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