Albon and Colapinto given free licence after recent smashes

Williams boss James Vowles has given Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto a free licence to attack in the Qatar Grand Prix weekend, despite a perilous situation.

The Grove team is running out of spare parts following a series of crashes since the United States Grand Prix, including three big incidents on Sunday of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix that meant Albon did not start, and for Colapinto last time out in Las Vegas that measured at 50G.

This follows a series of crashes earlier in the season, with the team suffering 15 notable incidents that required big rebuild jobs. 

This has put the team on the limit of spare parts, with just a single spare front-wing available between the Qatar GP and the end-of-season Abu Dhabi test. 

But reflecting on the situation, Vowles is determined not to restrain his drivers.

"It is not about holding back or restraining yourself, because that too often causes a negative effect, so they are free to give it all," he told Sky Sports F1.

"What we've done to define it is free practice, is free practice, take the time to build into it. 

"You saw that with Franco, but qualifying is qualifying and racing is racing, we're here to do everything we possibly can."

"We're trying to contain it as much as possible so that we are not hurting next year's programme, but when you are at those sort of numbers, it means you are not focusing on adding performance, you are just redeveloping the status quo.

"That is frustrating, in 25 years of doing this, I can't remember anything near this bad.

"What it has done is there is an amount of cost cap we've had to allocate to this year which is frustrating and I wish it was going into the future, there is an amount of diversion away from focusing on getting things better."