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Williams boss, James Vowles has spoken out following claims that Carlos Sainz has started the season with an inferior (2024) chassis.
As the Spaniard continues to struggle – scoring his first point of the season in China only after the Ferrari pair had been disqualified – sections of the Spanish media have claimed that the former Ferrari driver has started the season with an old 2024 chassis which has been repaired after crashing.
The drop in performance from Sainz has admittedly caught everyone by surprise, the Spaniard admitting it to be “one of the strangest swings of performance I have had in my career”.
Understandably, Vowles is keen to nip this particular little drama in the bud.
“So a clear statement on this one, both Alex and Carlos are using exactly the same equipment, the same chassis, the same front wings, the same gearboxes,” he declares in the latest Vowles’ Verdict video for the Grove outfit.
“Everything is of the same specification and standard,” he adds.
“More specifically, the question was are we running a ’24 chassis with Carlos,” says the Briton, in response to questions sent in to the team by fans. “Both drivers are running an evolution of last year’s chassis, so it’s evolved exactly the same way.
“We always intended to go through the last year of the regulations making sure that we are effectively evolving our chassis rather than redesign it from scratch,” he explains. “That’s really important because it allows us to put our eggs in an investment basket of 2026 and beyond, it’s not a financial question, it’s time resource.
“We are all up against the cost cap but it allows us to re-optimise and make sure that we’re getting everything for 26 we can out of it.”
Indeed, Vowles suggests that the early results – certainly in Alex Albon’s case – indicate that this has been the correct approach.
“We knew there was quite a bit of potential within the chassis, as a result of that, you can see we’ve moved up the field and I think there’s more performance to come from the package we have at the moment,” he insists.
“I’d also add that I think a number of teams on the grid have done something quite similar to what we’ve done,” he adds. “Not all, but most would have done.
“So answering the question very specifically, both drivers are using exactly the same thing, the evolution of the ’24 chassis.”
