Today's press conference with James Vowles, Laurent Mekies and Mike Krack.

Q: James, perhaps we'll start with you. Now, it's been a tough run for Williams of late. Can you just paint a picture for us? How tough has it been, both for the guys and girls here at the track and back at the factory?
James Vowles: Yeah, there's no doubt about it. I think teams aren't built to take, what is it, six major crashes. Generally speaking, we'll hold a stock of parts that's about four, maybe five of each component. That's about where you want to be. And so it doesn't take long to figure out that once you crash five or six of them, you're in trouble. Huge effort by both the trackside team and those in the factory. I've had people that are part-time or even on shift work just asking what more can they do to come in and do it. And that's an incredible feeling when you're part of an organisation that goes above and beyond to make sure we have two racing cars on the grid every week. It's a distraction away from '25, there's no doubt about it. Not so much from '26, but you have to pull your effort into just making sure you're here on track fighting with your competitors around you.

Q: You mentioned 2025. I did want to ask, what are the mid to long-term ramifications of this in terms of the cost cap, in terms of spares, just to finish this season?
JV: You're effectively just moving elements around from what you can do. No one here would have accounted, I hope anyway, for this amount of attrition this late on in the season. So the implication is you have to take a little bit away from next year's cost cap. That's the frustration behind it. You're moving things around. But to a certain extent as well... What's the implication? We have elements that we're fixing for the long term, which is around process structure, infrastructure. It doesn't hinder any of those. And those are the big gains. What we're talking about is a few hundreds of thousands that I wish we weren't spending this year that we could spend next year.

Q: What about Franco Colapinto? Has his confidence taken a knock with the series of crashes he's had?
JV: Short answer, no. If you speak to him today, I think hopefully you have the opportunity to. You'll see he's the same calm, collected individual that was there back in Monza. He takes, one of his huge strengths, all of this on his shoulders and just wants more. He just wants to keep performing. Not at all.

Q: Have you asked him to change his approach for these last two races?
JV: No. The only thing I asked both drivers to do, and this is before Las Vegas, is free practice. you need to take and a level of care. But qualifying is qualifying race is race. Do what you do best. You're one of the 20 best drivers in the world.

Q: James, this is the last time you're going to be in the FIA press conference...
JV: Ever? Is there something I don't know?

Q: This week, this year! I'll make sure you're in for Australia next year, just to start as we mean to go on. But can we look back just at 2024? Alex Albon said yesterday that the season has been better than it looks on paper. Do you agree with him?
JV: Yeah, I mean, ultimately, the position of the championship is the position of the championship. But we have a car that's able to, since we've updated it, fight for qualifying three. We had a car that in Brazil was still up there in that top three position before we crashed. We had a lap in Vegas from Franco that... We started far too close to a car behind, but we were doing a lap time that would have been faster than Gasly. So the pace of the cars there, which is what Alex was reflecting on, but with 15, I think it is, crashes. this year, we've had a lot of focus more on just getting ourselves back on the grid rather than striving forward. And as we discussed at the beginning of the year, we made some monumental changes in what we're doing internally. And by the way, still are. But the result of that was we didn't produce a car on the weight limit, which really hurt us in that first part of the year. So I think it's fair to say there's more progress than the championship position would highlight. But ultimately, we're adjudicated by where we are in the championship.

Q: Alright, James, many thanks for that. I'm sure there'll be more questions for you in a minute. Mike, let's come to you now. Aston Martin have had a rough run since Singapore in particular as well. Can we start by just talking about the mood in the team? How is confidence at Aston?
Mike Krack: Surprisingly good, I have to say. We are realistic. We know, or let's say we are not trying to hide the facts where we are with the car, with the performance, and then it's a matter of communicating this appropriately. Formula 1 teams always try to get the maximum of what they have, whatever it is, and there is nobody that is down on this. It's reality. Last year it was much easier to get more points at once. Now it is very, very difficult to get small points. But that's the reality and that is something that we have to accept and do the maximum with it. But to be honest, there has not been many frustrations. As James was saying, for Franco, for example, you have to put these things behind and look forward all the time, because if you dwell too much on the past, then you become frustrated.

Q: But you can learn from the past, can't you? And have the recent difficulties come as a surprise to the team?
MK: Well, the surprises come when you try to upgrade the car and you do not see the performance improvement. That is a surprise because you want to improve it and it doesn't improve. Then you have to obviously question how you have done it and if you should have done it differently. So the answer is yes, it comes as a surprise, because nobody wants to upgrade the car with stuff that doesn't work. So at the end of the day, yes.

Q: Can we talk about Dan Fallows? He's been moved off F1 projects at Aston. Is that linked to the lack of development with the car?
MK: Well, I think, you know, we spoke about the result just now with James. The only thing that matters is the result and the performance at the end. And if the performance is not there, there is change. That is, I think, normal in our business. This is not different in any professional sport. If the performance doesn't come, then the team decides to make changes. And this is the case.

Q: What about the drivers? How have they dealt with the difficulties of recent times?
MK: Well, I think, you know, hats off to both our drivers. They have not accepted, but they're challenging us internally, but externally they are excellent team players, and this is of great help, obviously, because if the difficulties are taken to the outside, it gets much more difficult. So they have really conducted themselves remarkably well. It's frustrating for them as well. We came from a good start in '23 and since it has not really progressed. And they have the microphone in front of them each time they get out of the car and are being confronted with negative questions, which is normal. And when you have adrenaline and these kind of things, it's very difficult to stay positive, which they have done. So, yeah, credit to them.

Q: And what about the season as a whole then? How will you reflect on 2024? And do you feel, despite the results, you've put the foundations in place for a better 2025?
MK: Yeah, I think the answer to the first question is we cannot be happy with our season. We started the year in a position where we finished it, where we finished the previous one. And our target was really to close the gap a little bit to the front. And the exact opposite happened. So we can't be happy with that. Then, it is clear that more buildings have come into service. More tools are coming into service. Not everything is ready yet. So yes foundations are being built in the background but we have to run a car also in this season and the next season and this is not dependent on 'am I finished yet with my wind tunnel or not?' Nobody will be interested in that after all.

Q: OK. Thank you very much, Mike. I'm sure there'll be more questions for you in a minute. Laurent, let's come to you now and start by talking about the battle for P6. It is incredibly close, just four points separating P6 to P8. How do you view the battle?
Laurent Mekies: Look, it's a crazy intense battle. Of course, it gets a bit less interest compared to what's happening at the very top. But to have three teams after 22 races separated by four points, it's very much, you work all these years as mechanics, as engineers, as staff to be involved in this sort of battle. That's why you love the sport. So I think it's great for the team to be part of that. It's pushing us to improve. It's pushing us to learn, sometimes in a hard way. But it's a great battle to be involved in. And, you know, I think it's good that these three teams, we are in the very, very final part of the seasons. We all have a car that is able to produce a top 10. So, you know, everybody has been trying to develop their cars throughout the whole seasons and the fact that at the very end of that we have a car that is able to fight for P10 is a good sign. So I don't know how it will finish in Abu Dhabi, but for sure in terms of the team growing through that battle, it was extremely helpful.

Q: And what has been your message to the team and to the drivers going into these last couple of races?
LM: The message is that we try to focus on ourselves. It will be easy to get a bit obsessed with where is Haas or where is Alpine as we go into these last two races. But the truth is, if we extract all the performance of the car, if we really nail the weekend as team plus drivers, then we will beat these guys by a very, very tiny margin, not by two tenths, not by one tenth. We'll probably only beat them by a few hundreds if we nail everything. So the message that we all try to go with is, let's focus on ourselves. Let's extract everything so that on Sunday night, we can look at each other's eyes and know that we got everything out of it. And then the classifications will be a consequence of that.

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