What James Vowles was seen doing on Williams pit wall after Franco Colapinto crash at Sao Paulo Grand Prix

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The Sao Paulo Grand Prix was perhaps the worst weekend of the year for Williams. They’ve had plenty of scoreless races in 2024 – including the previous round in Mexico – but this was uniquely damaging.

Franco Colapinto crashed out of both qualifying and the race, ending his 100% record of top-12 finishes. James Vowles had praised Colapinto for his defence against Lewis Hamilton in the Sprint, but his weekend unravelled from there.

Meanwhile, Alex Albon wasn’t able to start the race at all after a heavy shunt at the end of the Sunday morning qualifying. Albon had shown the potential to contend for a top-five spot.

Most significantly of all, Williams saw Alpine score an extraordinary double podium that nobody in the F1 paddock could have predicted. Even double points would have seemed optimistic.

Before this race, no midfield team had finished on the podium all season. The top four have enjoyed a huge advantage over the rest of the paddock.

But the rain was so torrential that it equalised the field, and Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly both drove outstanding races for a two-three finish. That 33-point haul saw them surge to sixth place, demoting Williams to second from bottom.

James Vowles leaves his post after Franco Colapinto crash at Brazilian Grand Prix

ESPN Deportes have offered a glimpse of what happened behind the scenes at Williams when Colapinto crashed out on lap 31 of the race. The accident was highly unusual because it came under safety car conditions.

However, Colapinto had been involved in a ‘radio dispute’ with the team beforehand, asking for full wet tyres rather than new intermediates. However, Williams ‘ignored him’, having seen frontrunners George Russell and Lando Norris favour new interest

Colapinto lost control of his car on the ascent towards the start/finish straight, spearing into the barriers. With Albon already sidelined, Vowles duly left his post on the pit wall and headed for the engineering office.

At the back of the Williams garage, Colapinto’s managers ‘leaned on the trolleys’ that carry the tyres and ‘stared into space’. The mechanics ‘hid their faces behind their hands’ as they faced yet another repair job.

How much damage did Franco Colapinto and Alex Albon cause at Williams in Brazil?

This was only the sixth race of Colapinto’s F1 career, the first held in the wet. And these weren’t ordinary wet conditions – it was extremely treacherous at the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace.

On that basis, criticism should be limited. Damon Hill told Oliver Bearman not to be ‘too hard’ on himself, and the same advice should apply to his former F2 rival.

Weekends like this are inevitable for most rookies, and it shouldn’t detract from his broadly fabulous start. Even the most experienced driver in F1 history, Fernando Alonso, crashed out on Sunday morning.

The bigger concern for James Vowles is that Williams racked up a seven-figure damage figure in Brazil. That will make it considerably harder for them to meet F1’s budget cap at the end of a crash-filled season.