REPORT: The most difficult day in Brazil

It was always set to be a tough day for the team with an early call time for Qualifying and the race to follow shortly after. Still, nobody could have foreseen just how difficult it would become.

The 7:30am wet Qualifying session saw numerous red flags, the first was for Franco Colapinto in Q1, eliminating the Argentine in the opening phase.

Alex Albon would make it through to Q3 and put in a lap good enough for P2 when he had a big crash at Turn 1. Thankfully both our drivers were OK.

We ended the nearly two-hour-long Qualifying session in P7 and P18, but with a big rebuild ahead for both cars.

The damage to Alex’s FW46 was too great and the tricky decision for him not to participate in the Grand Prix was made.

This left Franco as our only challenger for the race. Lance Stroll spun off on the formation lap to cause an aborted start.

When we eventually did get underway, FC43 had a good start on the intermediate tyres and immediately climbed to P12.

On the fifth tour as rain began to intensify, Franco was hit from behind by Ollie Bearman but escaped without serious damage.

As conditions worsened, Franco was learning with every lap, racing in the wet for the first time in Formula 1.

He dropped a position to Nico Hulkenberg when he ran wide through the Senna Esses but gained one back when he hassled the recovering Lewis Hamilton, making a sensational move through the opening sequence of corners.

On lap 26, the rain intensified. Franco stopped for fresh intermediates, rejoining in P16 just as the Virtual Safety Car was deployed after Hulkenberg went off at T1.

The Haas racer rejoined with outside interference and was later shown the black flag.

Conditions soon became incredibly tough and the Safety Car was deployed, which allowed Franco to stop for new intermediates once again and a flap adjustment.

However, as Franco was catching back up to the back, he lost control of his FW46 through Turn 14 and suffered a big collision with the wall. Franco was thankfully OK and got himself out of the car, but our afternoon was over.

James Vowles, Team Principal: The nature of Formula 1 is that you can have some of the most incredible feelings and results, as well as some of the lowest moments that you can feel within a sport.

I think it's fair to say this weekend is the second of those two. We've had three incredibly large crashes in just a few hours from one another and have a tremendous amount of work to get ourselves back on top of our spares situation before we go to Las Vegas in just a few weeks’ time.

Our rivals, Alpine, were quick in the race. No doubt about it. They deserved those positions, but they scored a huge bag of points putting them back up into a very high Championship position and demoting us back down to 9th.

I never give up until it's time to give up and that won't be until we're in Abu Dhabi and the checkered flag has dropped. We have two fast drivers, and we have a fast car underneath us.

We must go to every single one of these weekends now and deliver everything possible, whilst making sure we are still looking ahead towards 2025 and 2026 because that, as I've said all along, is where our goal is truly set. It's all about getting the foundations right as we go towards that 26’ region.

That doesn't make today any less painful. Far from it, I'm hurting right now. But actually, I wanted to watch that race to the finish to make sure I remember today because this isn't what I want us to be feeling in the future.

Franco Colapinto: I’m very sad for the team after what happened today; it was very tough on everyone, and things didn’t go our way. The team did an amazing job to put my car back on track for the Race after the accident in Qualifying, and so I’m very sorry for them to end the day this way.

We had a quick car and were looking to take advantage of any opportunities in the Race. We boxed for Inters, I was pushing to get the tyre temps up, and I just lost the car on one of the big rivers of water on the track. We can and will recover as a team. We still have three races to go, and we’ll come back from this.

Alex Albon: It’s obviously a really frustrating day. I can only feel sorry for the team, as I know the damage over the last few weeks has been tremendous and it’s put us in a challenging position for the next three races.

It’s no surprise that the last few weeks have been really tough, but I finally felt we’d found our rhythm again and were in a good place; the pace in Qualifying was strong and I felt comfortable with the car.

I really didn’t expect the incident in Turn 1 to happen, so we need to take a proper look to figure out what happened. It’s disappointing as it would’ve been a great opportunity to score points, as we knew coming to Brazil there is always a chance for crazy races, however it’s our competitors who’ve been able to capitalise on this.

I know it hasn’t been easy for the team, but it’s times like this where we must show resilience and try to find the silver lining. The positives are that the car was quick, and I’ve started to get the right rhythm back, so let’s fight for the last three races and see what happens in the Constructors’ Championship.