Alex Albon’s heavy crash in Friday’s opening practice in Melbourne left the Williams with a heavy workload on its hands that has ruled out the Anglo-Thai racer for FP2.
Albon triggered a red flag in the first session when he heavily clouted the wall at Albert Park’s Turn 7.
A replay of the incident showed that the Williams driver had hit the kerb at Turn 6 which upset his car's balance and sent it into a sudden oversteer.
Thankfully, Albon emerged from the incident unharmed. However, the damage to his car was significant enough for Williams to sideline him for the entirety of FP2.
The team will be diligently "assessing the damage" to undertake the necessary repairs for Saturday’s running.
“Further to Alex’s accident in FP1, we can confirm that he will not participate in FP2 while we continue to assess the damage,” Williams communicated on social media.
“Alex was uninjured in the incident.”
Despite his mishap and missing the final 10 minutes of FP1, Albon was credited with the twelfth fastest lap overall in the session.
But Albon's plight is complicated by the fact that the Grove-based outfit does not have a spare chassis in Melbourne to eventually build up a new car.
The team's assessment of the damages inflicted to its FW46, if deemed irreparable, could force Albon to pull out of the Australian GP.
But as the driver most likely to score points for the team, Albon could also take over Logan Sargeant's car, although this would prove unfair to the American.
“It was a fairly big accident,” Vowles told Motorsport.com. “The engine is damaged, the gearbox is split in two, and the chassis is damaged.
“It's the worst you could have ever had. We do not have a third chassis here, that's correct. So now it's just whether we can repair this one.
"We have repair kits, fundamentally of those I'm not yet sure, because it's a very serious accident and with what happened on the front [right] corner.”
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