Vaulz: Elbon will be at a disadvantage

      After the first practice in Singapore, James Vowles, Williams' team principal, spoke about what happened to Alex Albon's car at the very start of the session. Everyone who followed the events at the Marina Bay circuit saw that already in the first minutes of the session the rear brakes on car No. 23 caught fire.

      "We're going to have to replace almost the entire rear end of the car," Vowles explained on Sky Sports. "Although we'll have to spend some time assessing the extent of the damage. But repairing the car is much easier now because we change assemblies as complete units. We have pre-prepared rear-end components, i.e. gearboxes together with the rear suspension, etc.

      "Of course, I'd prefer that we didn't lose a single session, but you can see how quickly the speeds are increasing, and by the end of the first practice the cars were lapping three to four seconds faster. So the second session will be much more significant, but this is, after all, a street circuit where you need to bed in and build up the pace gradually, so Alex is inevitably going to be at a disadvantage."

      Carlos Sainz set the eighth-fastest time in the session, but Williams have not yet run the soft tyres.

      "Of course, we could have picked up another couple of tenths," Vowles confirmed. "Carlos did a few decent laps, that's for sure. He's performed very well at this track before and won here in 2023. The session times are very close, but that's good, although in preparing for this weekend we anticipated that it would be more challenging here than in Baku.

      "That will probably be the case, but at least we have the opportunity to fight for places in the top ten. And I've said more than once that this year's car upgrade is not among our priorities, but we just have to do everything right, and next season we'll take another step forward.

      "We are gradually improving our manufacturing infrastructure, renewing the fleet of machines and equipment, and this process even applies to our telemetry work. Still, it will be another two years before we're ready to go toe-to-toe with the giants — the championship's top teams. It may seem like a long wait, but every year we make another step forward, and I am absolutely confident in our progress."