Max Verstappen had won every race that he had finished up until this point in the 2024 season. However, the Miami Grand Prix gave us the 114th race winner in the history of Formula 1 in the form of British racing star Lando Norris. Starting from 5th on the grid, Norris cruised his way to the chequered flag with almost an 8-second gap to the Dutchman in second place. But Lando Norris wouldn’t have come anywhere close to winning the race if it were not for a lucky safety car period.

On lap 30, American driver Logan Sargeant was sent spinning into the barriers after he came into contact with the Haas of Kevin Magnussen, who was trying to overtake him on the inside. Magnussen was able to continue, however, Sargeant was left disappointed with an early retirement from his home race. While it was a rough day for the American driver, Max Verstappen couldn’t help but make fun of the incident that ended Sareant’s race in the cooldown room after the race.

Williams has had a poor start to the season for multiple reasons. While they haven’t been able to open their points tally, most of their struggles have come from the lack of a spare chassis, which has left the team tip-toeing with the fear of damaging the only available pair they have. However, the team finally breathed a sigh of relief as they finally brought a third chassis heading into the Miami GP.

And this is what Max Verstappen joked about as he watched the replay of the lap 30 crash in the cooldown room. Seeing Logan Sargeant’s Wiliams hitting the barrier, Verstappen jokingly took a dig at the team as he said, “At least they have a spare chassis now, right?” making fun of the fact Williams had been racing with just two chassis up until this point, which led them to bench Sargeant after giving his car to Alex Albon’s, who crashed in free practice in Melbourne.

With a spare chassis available, Williams drivers can breathe a sigh of relief in the upcoming races.

Williams needs to focus on updates now, says Alex Albon

During the car launch weeks during pre-season, team principal James Vowles revealed that the team was under a strict deadline to come up with the new car. With the team struggling to produce the two cars they needed for pre-season testing, a third chassis was slated to make its way during the Chinese Grand Prix weekend. However, heavy crashes during the Australian and Japanese Grand Prix meant that the team had to shift its focus to repairing the original chassis rather than working on a spare.

But now that Williams finally has a spare, Alex Albon hopes that the team can now focus on bringing some upgrades to the car. Speaking to the media during the weekend, Albon mentioned, “It’s been a lot of effort from the team, it feels like we’ve been playing catch up for most of the year, now with the chassis things are becoming a little bit more settled. Hopefully, we can really start focusing more on updates and general developments of the car.”

Do you think Williams will have to continue to play catch-up with other teams in the developmental battle for 2024? Let’s hear your insights in the comments down below.