Sainz's future teammate not satisfied with 2024: "Back foot since day one"

Williams on the back foot? 

In Belgium, Williams finished outside of the points again with Albon P12 and Logan Sargeant P17. Team Principal James Vowles admitted before the race that he thought the team was underperforming in 2024. Albon backed this; "I would say so. I think if you look at where we were, the delays from the start of the year. We've been on the back foot from day one of 2024 and we've been paying the price bit by bit." He admitted to GPblog and others in the paddock. 

The delays Albon refers to are the multiple big crashes from both drivers in the early rounds of the season. In Australia, only Albon raced. This was after the former Red Bull driver crashed on Friday and the team not having a spare chassis. They opted to give Albon Sargeant's car for the rest of the weekend. In Japan, both drivers found the wall. On Friday it was Sargeant, who had been driving Albon's repaired chassis from Australia. On Sunday, it was Albon who collided with Ricciardo three corners into the Grand Prix. 

The result of these crashes was a lot of money being spent on repairs, rather than being spent on upgrading the car. However, Albon didn't cite this as the only reason for William's underperformance. "The whole reason why we've been delayed is because we've changed so much. We are already in a stronger position in terms of structurally and at Grove.

"Now, hopefully, once the upgrades start coming in and everything starts to work together, we'll be getting in a better position. I'm not kicking myself so much about any of the changes we've done so far. Despite everything, we're still giving ourselves chances to score points but we're not here to score points. We're here to finish in the top five."