Williams dismiss Latifi crash cost concern

Ewan Gale
Friday 15 April 2022 10:40

Williams head of vehicle performance Dave Robson has dismissed concerns over the rising bill for Nicholas Latifi's various crashes in the opening races of the F1 season with the team having budgeted for "attrition".

The spending of each team was capped at $145million in the first year of the cost restriction era, with the total reduced by $5million this season.

With new cars meaning developments will be key for improvement throughout the season and resources being heavily focused on creating upgrades, incidents on track will severely hamper teams.

Williams has had several incidents already this year with Nicholas Latifi crashing out of qualifying and the race in Saudi Arabia before being taken out of qualifying by Lance Stroll in Australia.

Asked how that affects the team's budget for the year, Robson replied: "You obviously budget for a certain amount of attrition, both just general wear and tear of parts that you can't repair, and obviously accident damage.

"When you go to somewhere like Jeddah and then again [Australia] where accidents do happen and the walls are there, you know that is always a possibility.

"It is wrapped up in the budget, a portion of the budget is set aside for that. It makes it difficult, especially at the start of the season because there isn't other versions of things to fall back to, that is a problem.

But explaining how the team can turn such incidents into small wins, Robson added: "On the other hand, because things move along in the wind tunnel reasonably quickly, the fact you have to make some extra parts, you can make them to a slightly improved spec if you know what you want to do.

"It is clearly not what we would have chosen to do but you have just got to make the best of it, it is all part of the new game of dealing with the budget."