F1 Australian Grand Prix Notebook: No Quick Fix to Williams Car Shortage

Williams’ spare car woes will continue and Ferrari’s Jeddah hero’s Formula 2 woes continue. Autoweek provides its paddock notebook from the third round of the 2024 Formula 1 season in Melbourne.

Williams Will Be a Car Short in Japan, Too

Williams will again be without a spare chassis at the next round of the season in Japan.

Formula 1 teams are permitted to have a third chassis available at each Grand Prix, which can be built up into an operational car if one of the two race chassis are written off in practice or qualifying.

But Williams has not been able to take a third chassis to a grand prix so far in 2024.

Alex Albon’s sizeable crash during opening practice left Williams with only one chassis, which he took over from Logan Sargeant for the remainder of the weekend, and the damaged car has been sent back to its factory in the UK to be repaired.

Personnel originally working on the third chassis, as well as on updated components, will now be tasked with repairing the second chassis in order to get it ready for the next race. That also means that Albon and Sargeant will have to walk a tightrope at the challenging high-speed Suzuka track, where the barriers are perilously close, and where Sargeant was forced to switch to the spare chassis last year after a crash in qualifying.

Team principal James Vowles recognized the tricky mental challenge facing Albon and Sargeant but believes any change of mindset or instruction would have a negative influence.

“I’m pretty sure they fully understand that there’s no risks that we can be taking at this stage,” he said. “So it’s an interesting psychological trick, but if you talk to a driver and say ‘don’t take any risks,’ they’re racing drivers, it’s what I pay them to do—I pay them to be pushing to the absolute limit of where they can be, within reason, and I’m asking them to do something that’s entirely unnatural to them, and in certain aspects probably worse.”

Vowles, who joined in February 2023, is overseeing widespread transformation at Williams as the squad strives to change out-of-date processes while it awaits new equipment, with Vowles having been shocked at the age of some Williams’ machinery when he joined. Several rival teams were surprised that Williams was without a spare car but for Vowles it once more again highlighted the progress Williams needs to make.

“There’s a finite amount of resource and as we were going through an inefficient structure and making transformation at the same time, we started to cause problems,” he said. “In this particular case, the third chassis started to get delayed and delayed and delayed, and I think one of the things were transparent about is we were very late with these cars. Very, very late. We pushed everything to the absolute limit. The fallout of that is we didn’t have a spare chassis. Now even then it was intended to be coming here at round three, but it got delayed and delayed again as other items got pushed back as a result.”

Vowles expressed sympathy for Sargeant, and acknowledged that the decision will have damaged the young American’s confidence. Vowles also lauded the manner in which Sargeant acted as a team player.

Sargeant was present for the remainder of the Melbourne weekend, assisting Albon where possible, though unfortunately for Williams Albon finished 11th and came up just short of points.

Vowles is optimistic that Williams will have the third chassis ready for the fifth round of the season in China.

When It Rains, It Pours

It never rains, but it pours, and yet despite the weekend-long sunshine and dry weather, Alpine turned up on Friday to discover a slightly soggy hospitality unit. Unfortunately for the team its hospitality suite happened to be affected by a plumbing issue, turning the green grass outside the building into a brown mulch, with the area being cordoned off while repairs were undertaken.

Meanwhile, Alpine endured another difficult Grand prix as Esteban Ocon had to make an unscheduled pit stop after a visor tear-off from another car became lodged in a rear brake duct, dropping him to 16th, while Pierre Gasly was 13th.

A Record Crowd

Australia’s Formula 1 round has always been among the most popular and that trend continued in 2024.

In a weekend that also included Formula 2, Formula 3 and Australia’s famed Supercars on the support bill, nearly 70,000 fans flocked to Albert Park on Thursday, with 124,000 on Friday, 130,000 on Saturday, and a Sunday crowd of 132,000.

Formula 1 put the overall weekend attendance at 452,055, a record for the event. Melbourne is expected to return to an early March date in 2025 when it is anticipated to be the season-opening round for the first time since 2019.

Gasly invests in FC Versailles

Alpine’s Pierre Gasly has become a third co-owner of French soccer team FC Versailles. The club, located on the outskirts of France’s capital, Paris, is semi-professional and plays in the third tier of the country’s football system.

“I think I’ve always showed my interest for football since I arrived in this paddock,” said Gasly, who chose his race number of 10 as a tribute to soccer icon Zinedine Zidane. “It’s a massive passion of mine, so I always wanted to be involved in some way in football.

"I’ve had a couple of opportunities that were raised since I arrived in Formula 1, and meeting a lot of people and having a better network. I had this very exciting project with Versailles which I looked quite deeply into details over the winter. And I need to have my side projects."

Sanctions against Mazepin Dropped

Former Haas F1 Team racer and Russian Nikita Mazepin is now allowed to re-enter European Union states after the body dropped sanctions imposed upon the Russian.

Mazepin raced for Haas in 2021 and was set to continue into 2022 but he was dropped on the eve of the campaign following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Mazepin’s situation was complicated by his close affiliation with Russia’s government, through his father Dmitry, who owns the Uralkali firm that heavily invested in Mazepin and was Haas’ title sponsor, and which was a substantial source of revenue to the Russian government.

Last week, the European Union annulled sanctions against Nikita, as the association between Mazepin father and son is no longer economically motivated. The EU’s Court of Justice deemed that family connection alone is not sufficient for Mazepin to remain on the list of sanctioned individuals.

The 25-year-old Mazepin is continuing to challenge the separate sanctions imposed on him by the United Kingdom and Canada. Mazepin has only raced sporadically since his exit from Formula 1, in the Asian Le Mans Series, and the FIA still permits Russian and Belarussian drivers to compete as neutrals. However, given Mazepin’s lack of success, and the reliance of his father’s funding upon his Formula 1 seat in 2021, he stands zero chance of returning to F1.

F1 Exhibition heading to North America

F1 Exhibition is setting up in North America for the first time, with the spectacle set to open in Toronto. F1 Exhibition provides an immersive experience for attendees, with historical artefacts, iconic Formula 1 cars on display, and archive video material detailing the history and influential figures in the championship. F1 Exhibition was launched last year in Madrid, with another exhibition opening in Vienna, and now Toronto’s Lighthouse ArtSpace will welcome the sport from May 3.

“The F1 Exhibition has proven hugely successful during its visits to Madrid and Vienna and with Canada’s history and passion towards our sport, we expect that it will be popular with new and existing fans when it opens in May in Toronto,” said Emily Prazer, Chief Commercial Officer of Formula 1. “Experience has shown that it is a great way for them to connect to the sport in a different format outside of a race weekend.”

Bearman Returns to Earth

Ollie Bearman, the hero in Jeddah with a seventh-place finish in a pinch-hitting role, was brought firmly back down to earth in Formula 2 in Melbourne.

Nothing went right all weekend for the 18-year-old as his qualifying was hampered by a red flag and a blown piston, leaving him mired 16th on the grid for both races. Bearman made only incremental gains in the main Feature Race, skewered further by an ill-timed pit stop, being hit wide by Pepe Marti, before a spin of his own volition at Turn 1.

Bearman managed to get into the top 10—gaining two points for finishing ninth. He is only 19th in the championship standings for the season—remarkably meaning he is having a stronger season in Formula 1 than in Formula 2.