Carlos Sainz has been given permission from Ferrari to drive for Williams in the post-season test in Abu Dhabi next month. The Spaniard will race for Williams from 2025 onwards alongside Alex Albon (pictured at left, above, with Sainz), following …
Carlos Sainz has been given permission from Ferrari to drive for Williams in the post-season test in Abu Dhabi next month.
The Spaniard will race for Williams from 2025 onwards alongside Alex Albon (pictured at left, above, with Sainz), following Ferrari’s signing of Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes that was announced at the start of this year. Although under contract until the end of 2024, Sainz has been allowed to begin work with Williams in the one-day test that follows the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, driving this year’s FW46.
“This early opportunity will allow both Carlos and Williams to begin building their relationship,” Williams said in a statement. “The test session will provide a valuable chance for Carlos to begin integrating into his new team environment, and he will drive the FW46 for the first time.”
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Sainz is one of four current drivers who are moving teams in the off-season, with Esteban Ocon joining Haas and Nico Hulkenberg switching to Stake Sauber alongside Hamilton’s move.
Four rookies have also been confirmed as joining the grid full-time in the form of Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Oliver Bearman, Jack Doohan and Gabriel Bortoleto. All four are expected to run in Abu Dhabi, where teams can run one car for drivers who have started no more than two grands prix, and one car for Pirelli tire testing purposes.
Earlier on Friday, Williams also shut down any notion that it was at risk of not having two cars ready for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, with a spokesperson telling RACER it would be “business as usual” next weekend following a major effort from the team and suppliers to overcome the damage sustained in Brazil.
Second-race rookie Franco Colapinto hopes his maiden score in a difficult Azerbaijan Grand Prix is proving that he deserves his shot in Formula 1. Colapinto was parachuted into Logan Sargeant’s seat last time out in Italy, with Williams hoping its …
Second-race rookie Franco Colapinto hopes his maiden score in a difficult Azerbaijan Grand Prix is proving that he deserves his shot in Formula 1.
Colapinto was parachuted into Logan Sargeant’s seat last time out in Italy, with Williams hoping its development driver would boost its odds of scoring points in the final third of the season.
His weekend started badly, with a crash in FP1 that also cost him laps in FP2 due to ongoing repairs, but he was superb thereafter, qualifying ninth in a Williams double Q3 appearance.
The race was set to be far more difficult, with Colapinto having never raced in Baku before, but the Argentine didn’t put a foot wrong on his way to his first points for finishing eighth, just one place and 2s behind teammate Alex Albon. It immediately justified team boss James Vowles’s decision to sub him into the team on short notice, with each place on the title table worth millions of dollars in prize money.
“I think they showed so much confidence and trust in putting me in the seat,” Colapinto said. “It was a very difficult bet and a bet that many didn’t understand. I hope I’m showing what I’m capable of. The opportunity that James gave me is helping me to show that.
“[Now] I’m just doing a lot of work to try to learn quick. I have very little mileage in Formula 1. It’s only two races and one free practice and a few laps in Abu Dhabi last year, but I think, with the little mileage I’ve got, to win points in my second race is something really positive and very good.”
The double score took Williams past Alpine and up to eighth in the constructors championship, where it’s now 13 points behind seventh-placed Haas.
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“It’s a great result for the team,” Colapinto said. “Both cars in the points, P8 in the constructors championship, both cars in the top eight. It’s something unexpected and amazing for the team, for Williams. They really deserve it. I’m just very happy — very happy for what we achieved together.
“We need to keep working on the future. We just have to keep working as a team and keep doing what we are doing slowly. I think results will keep coming.”
The top-10 finish came despite an ambitious strategy requiring an early pit stop and a long 41-lap stint to the checkered flag. The Argentine said the tactics exposed his still poor understanding of how to manage the tires just two races into his grand prix career as well as his physical conditioning in the step up from Formula 2 to Formula 1.
“I think we did manage [the tires] very well, but we managed them too much,” he said. “We managed the fronts too much and I didn’t really know what was happening and why my front tire was graining like that. It’s something I found out very late in the race, and I think knowing that maybe could’ve attacked Fernando [Alonso for sixth] a bit more — it’s all part of the process and part of the learning.
“We need to keep working on the physical aspect. There are tough races coming now. This one was tough because between walls you need to keep the focus constantly all the time and be real on it.
“I guess [the next race in] Singapore will be very, very hard, but I felt great today — I felt much better than Monza.”
Franco Colapinto described his exit from Q1 at the Italian Grand Prix as “frustrating” after running slightly wide on his final timed lap of his debut qualifying session. Williams replaced Logan Sargeant with rookie Colapinto for the final nine …
Franco Colapinto described his exit from Q1 at the Italian Grand Prix as “frustrating” after running slightly wide on his final timed lap of his debut qualifying session.
Williams replaced Logan Sargeant with rookie Colapinto for the final nine races of the season, with the Argentinian driver taking part in his first grand prix weekend. Steady progress in practice and a competitive car had left Colapinto eyeing a spot in Q2, but he ran wide at the second Lesmo and bounced through the gravel, ending up 18th on the grid.
“It’s frustrating of course,” Colapinto said. “I was expecting more after FP3; we had really good pace. I had a lot to improve after lap one in Q1, so I think I was expecting Q2 was very possible, and of course that little mistake that I did cost me the lap.
“A lot of things to keep learning, a lot to understand with the tires yet. It’s a lot of things going on. I am getting used to it and adapting quite quick, but I still need to understand … Of course tomorrow is going to be a very special day, my first F1 race, and it’s going to be an important moment of my career.
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“I think my longest stint now was like eight laps, so tomorrow will be a long one, 57 or something, so looking forward to tomorrow and to keep understanding the tires. I think it’s the most difficult part — keep learning about the car, and hopefully [it’ll get] much better in these nine races.”
Alex Albon showed the pace of the Williams — reaching Q3 and securing ninth on the grid — and says he’s primed for a fight with Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas for the lower points positions.
“P9 is great, so I’m very happy,” Albon said. “We were the best of the rest so far this weekend and that’s where we hoped to be, but I don’t think we truly believed we’d be here, so it’s good. When the car continues to deliver in the practice sessions, it does add a bit of extra pressure to make sure we deliver in qualifying, but it all paid off.
“It’s a very different track to Zandvoort and as good as the upgrades have been, we know this track does suit our car, but we also know that if we didn’t have the upgrade, we wouldn’t be in Q3, so that’s a nice takeaway. We were fighting the Haas throughout qualifying and they seem to have slightly stronger race pace for tomorrow. Graining will be our biggest concern, but let’s see how we go.”
Williams team principal James Vowles says he was convinced Logan Sargeant had reached the limit of his performance and revealed what led him to pick Franco Colapinto over more experienced options to replace the American. Sargeant was dropped after …
Williams team principal James Vowles says he was convinced Logan Sargeant had reached the limit of his performance and revealed what led him to pick Franco Colapinto over more experienced options to replace the American.
Sargeant was dropped after last Sunday’s race in Zandvoort, with rookie Colapinto taking over from this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix onwards. The change came after months of speculation regarding Sargeant’s future and a heavy crash in practice, and Vowles (pictured at right, above, with Colapinto, middle) says it was a move he didn’t want to make but felt he had to as he didn’t see any further potential progression on the cards.
“If you speak to every team principal up and down the pit lane, no one wants to change a driver mid-season,” Vowles said. “It’s horrible. It is incredibly tough on the driver, it’s tough on the team, it is disruptive to say the least. The cleanest point to have done it would have been at the beginning of the year.
“Logan at the end of last year was starting to get within a tenth of Alex [Albon] and if that progression continued I think we would have seen a driver in a very strong place this year, and it didn’t feel like the right point to sever ties as a result of it.
“The reason now is straightforward — we’ve had enough experience under our belt to know he’s reached the limit of what he’s able to achieve, and in fact it’s almost unfair on him furthermore to continue with him. If you look at his face when he gets out of the car, he’s given you everything he possibly can, and it’s not enough.
“He absolutely never from a human perspective gave me anything other than 100% of what he’s able to do, but the realization of where he is on his limits now is very clear; it’s clear to everyone, and more than that, the relationship can only become more and more difficult across the last nine races because he knows what his future holds, which is not to be in F1 anymore.
“Actually a clean break at this stage feels like the correct decision for all parties. It feels like it’s fair to Logan — he won’t feel that way today, but I hope he reflects on it in the future that it is fair towards him in that regard.
Sargeant’s heavy crash in practice at Zandvoort was the last straw in convincing Vowles that his progression as an F1 driver had ended. Simon Galloway/Motorsport Images
“Changing between back-to-back races really is an awful thing to do, which hopefully shows you where we are in this. And to be very clear to everyone it wasn’t just based on an accident, it was based on in the race he had all of the parts that Alex had available to him, but the performance wasn’t there, he was lacking in that area, and the gap’s almost as big as it was last year.”
Colapinto was a surprising choice given his lack of experience, with the Argentinian competing in his first season of Formula 2 this year but now stepping up for the final nine races. Vowles says he informed Sargeant of the decision on Tuesday and while he had two more experienced options he didn’t see Mick Schumacher as a strong enough candidate to pick over a Williams Driver Academy member.
“There were three options on the table — one was Liam Lawson, one was Mick, and one was Franco,” Vowles said. “With Liam the contractual situation with Red Bull wouldn’t have worked with me here at Williams. And then it’s a tough choice, it really is. Mick has improved a lot from where he was with Haas, there’s no doubt about it. He’s a competent driver that I know he had his time, but he has done incredible work with Alpine, with Mercedes, and with McLaren in the meantime, and all advocates will speak with you and tell you where he’s adapted and where he’s changed.
“So now the decision is do we put Mick in the car — and I think Mick would have done a good job — or do we invest in an individual that’s a part of our academy, that’s done hundreds of thousands of laps in the simulator, that’s driven our car –the only driver to do so this year in FP1 — and on the data from what we can see and how he’s performing, he’s making significant steps.
“So it becomes a decision, do we invest in the future or do we invest in someone else as a result of it? Both will fall into a category of good, not special, I think we have to be straightforward about this: Mick isn’t special, he just would have been good.”
So far, so good: Franco Colapinto was only 0.192s slower than new Williams teammate Alex Albon in the second practice session at Monza. Simon Galloway/Motorsport Images
Vowles emphasized Colapinto’s place in the team’s academy was key.
“He [Schumacher] would have come with a lot more experience than Franco does, but here’s what I and Williams believe in, the core values: Williams has always invested in new generations of driver and youth, and what I’ve been speaking about all the way through is the future of Williams, and the future of Williams isn’t in investing in the past, it’s investing in talent that allows us to move forward as individuals.
“It’s investing in an academy — you’ll see announcements in the next six weeks or so how we’re filling up that academy — and the amount of finance we’re putting into it, and when you’re putting that amount of finance into your academy you’ve got to put your actions where your words are as well.
“I myself 25 years ago was junior and someone trusted in me and believed in me and invested in me. Franco’s ahead in the F2 championship of [Kimi] Antonelli, he’s ahead of [Oliver] Bearman, and he’s with MP, which with all due respect to MP it’s not Prema or ART, and he’s doing a good job of building up into it.
“Do I think we’ve put someone into the deep end of the swimming pool? Absolutely, 100%, but if you listen to Franco’s own words you’ll hear that he’s up for it, and he knows what’s in front of him, and he’s ready for the challenge.
“So answering your question, I want to demonstrate to the world that investing in a driver that I hope will become a very successful reserve driver for us, simulator driver for us — and other aspects depending on how he performs — is investing in the future of Williams.”
Although he admits his preparations for the Italian Grand Prix have been limited, Franco Colapinto describes the opportunity Williams has given him to race in Formula 1 as “insane” and one he is ready to take. Williams opted to drop Logan Sargeant …
Although he admits his preparations for the Italian Grand Prix have been limited, Franco Colapinto describes the opportunity Williams has given him to race in Formula 1 as “insane” and one he is ready to take.
Williams opted to drop Logan Sargeant following the Dutch Grand Prix, where the American crashed heavily in FP3 and severely damaged an upgraded car, with Formula 2 racer Colapinto chosen as his replacement. The Argentinian rookie says the call came extremely late and was unexpected, but that he feels ready to take on the challenge at Monza.
“For you to imagine, Monday I was in the Formula 2 sim preparing for the race here in Monza with my team, so you can imagine how late it was!” said Colapinto (pictured above walking the track with Williams engineers) said. “I don’t know when they were thinking about but it’s an opportunity that I feel ready for and waiting for for so, so long.
“As a young kid I was always dreaming of this coming through and happening, so today to be here speaking to all of you, it’s a pleasure and I am extremely grateful we have got this opportunity.
“It came very late, of course, but although I am ready I was not expecting it, to be honest. I cannot explain how happy I am to be here with Williams — they have been very supportive and the opportunity they have given me is insane.”
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Colapinto concedes he hasn’t had a lot of time to prepare specifically for this race weekend, but believes his work in the Williams simulator as a member of the team’s young driver academy has helped give him a good chance of adapting quickly.
“Well, not a lot [of preparation]! You can imagine I have a lot of preparation to race in F2 and do a good job. But we have done, in a very short period of time, a lot of things,” he said. “It’s only Thursday and in the very small amount of time we have had, we have worked very well. I prepared a seat, prepared in the simulator very well and the race engineers are giving me information and tips to be quick as soon as possible and to make that learning process a bit quicker.
“Luckily, I have a privilege to be in the simulator so young [as a Williams academy driver], because it prepares me a little bit more for F1, to go through a lot of the process because you have so many things to do in the car. So to do laps and laps and laps in there, it prepares me to be a little bit more comfortable today — I know the [steering] wheel and things that are sometimes a bit difficult.
“I think especially with a few races [completed], I will be a little bit more relaxed and I am trying to go step by step.”
The 21-year-old says he has spoken to Sargeant since the decision and feels for the American, but rejected the notion that his only target would be to bring the car home in one piece over the remaining nine races.
“I am a rookie and a rookie in Formula 2 as well, so I am not expecting much. I want to go step by step and focus on myself,” he said. “To be able to be focused on my job and to do what the team expects, to be honest I am more than sure that I can do it. So I cannot wait to jump in the car tomorrow.”
The United States saw its sole representative among the drivers on the Formula 1 grid lose his seat on Tuesday, as Williams opted to drop Logan Sargeant for the remainder of the season in favor of Formula 2 racer Franco Colapinto (pictured above). …
The United States saw its sole representative among the drivers on the Formula 1 grid lose his seat on Tuesday, as Williams opted to drop Logan Sargeant for the remainder of the season in favor of Formula 2 racer Franco Colapinto (pictured above). It was a clinical decision, made off the back of a heavy crash in FP3 at Zandvoort that cost Williams a huge amount of money, as well as damaged a number of upgraded components. Those components had been delayed in terms of their introduction from much earlier in the year, when Williams also had to deal with a lot of repair work.
To be fair to Sargeant, he wasn’t the only one of the two drivers to crash earlier in the year, with Alex Albon writing off a chassis in Melbourne when Williams didn’t have a spare, and subsequently being given Sargeant’s car as the American was withdrawn from the rest of the weekend. But the demands on Sargeant had been set out by team principal James Vowles, who wanted to see the 23-year-old getting closer to Albon’s level of performance on a regular basis. Not crashing heavily was taken as a given.
A year ago, Sargeant crashed twice during the Zandvoort weekend, once in qualifying — having reached Q3 for the first time — and then again in the race. At the time, if you could have fast-forwarded 12 months you’d have expected to see a little more consistency in his performance, and a lot less propensity to damage the car.
So the decision was not taken solely on performance potential, because Sargeant has shown flashes of what he can do. But with no points this season, it was deemed time to roll the dice to see if it could find a safer pair of hands that could simultaneously increase the chances of scoring.
On that basis, Colapinto did not top my list of expected replacements. In fact, uncertainty over his Super License status and the fact he’s only in his first year of F2 meant I largely dismissed his name’s inclusion in the pool of drivers being considered by Williams over the weekend at Zandvoort. But the 21-year-old Argentinian has clearly impressed the team enough to be deemed a better choice than having Sargeant to complete the season, with both knowing that Carlos Sainz will arrive in 2025.
In that sense, the pressure is off for Colapinto. It’s not an audition for a race seat, and he has nothing to lose. But his racing record would suggest he wouldn’t have pushed beyond his own means in the hope of impressing either way.
Colapinto earned four of his Super License points for completing an FIA championship — each of his two Formula 3 seasons — without receiving any penalty points, a trend he has continued this year in F2. He’s also brought the car home in every race bar two this season, both due to reliability issues.
Colapinto’s get-acquainted sessions with the Williams FW46 mean he won’t be coming in completely cold. Zak Mauger/Motorsport Images
Williams has been able to see Colapinto’s potential through two outings in current machinery, with him completing the Young Driver Test in Abu Dhabi last year and then making his FP1 debut at Silverstone back in July. On the latter occasion, he was 0.4s off Albon, but also managed 24 laps, ensuring he exceeded 100km without penalty and picked up another Super License point.
Of the other main candidates that came across the radar in recent weeks, all are tied to other teams, with Liam Lawson the Red Bull and RB reserve driver, Jack Doohan the same at Alpine and Mick Schumacher also fulfilling reserve duties for Mercedes at times. All three could theoretically have been called back by their parent teams if required at short notice, leaving Williams scrambling. Instead, Colapinto brings a certainty that he will see out the season.
Williams is also following its own mantra by backing a young driver that has come through its academy, having signed Sargeant and placed him in F2 before promoting him in 2023, and now doing exactly the same with his replacement.
It’s a big ask for Colapinto to deliver performances, but he has won at Monza on numerous occasions in the junior categories, and will be racing this weekend on a track that he knows well, even if that isn’t in F1 machinery.
Costly errors in terms of results or lap time will be accepted for a rookie being dropped into the car at late notice, but the one thing Williams and Vowles will be telling Colapinto to avoid is the expensive mistake that heavily damages a car.
Do that over the next nine races and Colapinto will likely return to F2 next year as a talent as closely watched as Kimi Antonelli and Oliver Bearman. Fail, and Williams will have learned a lot about one of its top young prospects, but also missed out on little given Sargeant’s lack of results and the stability to the future lineup that Sainz brings alongside Albon.
The team had little to lose, but Colapinto potentially has a lot to gain.
Red Bull “would be open” to loaning Liam Lawson to Williams for the Italian Grand Prix, according to Christian Horner. Williams has sounded out the availability of potential replacements for Logan Sargeant should it make a mid-season change to its …
Red Bull “would be open” to loaning Liam Lawson to Williams for the Italian Grand Prix, according to Christian Horner.
Williams has sounded out the availability of potential replacements for Logan Sargeant should it make a mid-season change to its driver lineup, following an expensive crash for Sargeant during FP3 at the Dutch Grand Prix. Lawson is understood to be one such name on the list, and Horner says he is not against Lawson driving another car on short notice but would want him to still be available to the two Red Bull teams as a reserve driver if required.
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“It would depend on which terms and if we needed him back that we could have him back quite quickly,” Horner said. “But we’d certainly… if they needed a driver next weekend, we’d be open to that. But that’s a Williams question rather than one for us to answer.”
RACER understands it was not just Red Bull that was approached to understand potential driver availability, but Williams refused to be drawn on whether a change could be made as soon as next weekend’s race at Monza.
“We are not going to get into speculation,” a team spokesperson said. “There have been a lot of false rumors about Logan and his seat this year. As James [Vowles] maintains, F1 is a meritocracy but as a team we are focused on delivering the best possible results in the upcoming races.”
Sargeant will stop racing for Williams in 2025 when he is replaced by Carlos Sainz, who has signed a multi-year deal to join Alex Albon at the team.
Alex Albon has lost eighth place on the grid at the Dutch Grand Prix after his Williams car was found to not be compliant with the technical regulations. Williams brought a major upgrade to Zandvoort that included a complete new floor – comprising …
Alex Albon has lost eighth place on the grid at the Dutch Grand Prix after his Williams car was found to not be compliant with the technical regulations.
Williams brought a major upgrade to Zandvoort that included a complete new floor — comprising floor body, floor fences and floor edge — as well as diffuser, sidepods, engine cover and the central air intake. It’s the floor that caught the attention of the FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer, who stated, “The floor body was found to lie outside the regulatory volume mentioned in [the technical regulations],” and referred the matter to the stewards.
After a hearing involving Williams personnel, Albon’s car was excluded from the qualifying results.
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“The team did not dispute the calibration of the FIA measuring system and the measurement of the car, but stated that their own measurements have produced different results.
“The stewards determine that the result of the measurement conducted with the FIA system in Parc Ferme is the relevant one and the due process prescribed by the regulations has been followed. Therefore the standard penalty for such an infringement is applied.”
Albon delivered a strong qualifying performance and had originally been set to line up eighth on the grid, but he will now have to start from the pit lane as the specification of the car will need to be changed to become compliant with the regulations.
All other drivers will move up one position in the classification as a result.
Williams’ chief engineer Dave Robson says the team’s overweight car this year has led to frustration regarding missed results, but is not being allowed to overshadow long-term goals. Under James Vowles’ leadership, Williams made significant changes …
Williams’ chief engineer Dave Robson says the team’s overweight car this year has led to frustration regarding missed results, but is not being allowed to overshadow long-term goals.
Under James Vowles’ leadership, Williams made significant changes to the way it manufactures its chassis over the winter but nearly didn’t have two cars ready for the start of the season, and the lack of a spare caught it out in Australia. Overall performance has also been impacted by the car being significantly above the weight limit, and ahead of a planned major upgrade after the summer break, Robson admits the overall progress being made as a team has still been paired with annoyance at what could have been this year.
“I think there’s both,” Robson said. “We can’t lose sight of the fact that we did take a step backwards in order to ultimately take some global steps forward, and we will see that play out. But equally, when you’re on the pit wall watching qualifying, particularly at the beginning of the year, every time our qualifying was over, we looked at each other and we said, ‘If only this had been at the weight limit.’ Then you start looking and we would have been so much further up.
“James was very good in saying you can’t think like that, but in the moment it obviously is frustrating. And maybe with perfect hindsight we wouldn’t have changed what we did or what we set out to do — maybe we would have changed a little bit about how we did it and maybe we would have started the whole process earlier.
“So there’s definitely some frustration and some regret in the moment, but I think we can all see the bigger picture and what James is trying to lead us towards. So it is a little bit of short-term pain but I think we can all see where this will play out.”
The weight handicap meant the Williams drivers were playing from behind early in the season. Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Robson says it’s not actually the chassis itself that has been an issue when it comes to the car’s weight, but the impact the new approach to manufacturing it had on other aspects of the car.
“I think we can look back now and say we were quite ambitious with what we took on over the winter,” he reflected. “We completely changed the way we manufactured the chassis, and that brought about some weight-saving from the chassis as well as allowing us to do some very useful R&D type work that will play out over the coming years.
“So it’s one of those big cases where we took on quite a lot, quite a big challenge technically, and although it wasn’t exactly intended when we embarked on that route — obviously that decision was taken pretty early — the knock-on of that was it was a bit more complicated than we expected. That had ramifications for some other parts that we kind of had to rush the design through.
“So the net result was that although the chassis was quite a good step forward, the overall car finished up heavier than it was intended to.”
James Vowles says Carlos Sainz choosing to join Williams over Audi and Alpine is a “monumental” outcome for his team. Sainz’s future was the center of speculation throughout 2024 prior to the summer break, with the Spaniard set to be replaced by …
James Vowles says Carlos Sainz choosing to join Williams over Audi and Alpine is a “monumental” outcome for his team.
Sainz’s future was the center of speculation throughout 2024 prior to the summer break, with the Spaniard set to be replaced by Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari and not receiving firm offers from Mercedes or Red Bull. While he was heavily linked with the Audi project early on, and had serious interest from Alpine, in the end it was Williams that secured his signature on a multi-year contract.
“I think it’s a huge, huge event for Williams to have two of the best drivers of the world fighting at the front,” team principal Vowles said. “I think it’s very much a sign of things to come the fact that we are prepared to have the investment required to be there. And a lot of it you can’t see; the one you can materially see is what we’re doing by effectively putting money where it should be into the best drivers that are available to us. In terms of beating an OEM, and one of the largest in the world, I am incredibly proud. I said this to Carlos anyway — it’s one of the proudest moments of my career and I’ve had lots of great moments in my career. The fact that he chose us above all else is a huge, huge, monumental decision.”
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Vowles says it’s not just the relative struggles of the other teams that played a role in Sainz’s decision, but the longer-term picture of what Williams is building and where it is likely to be in the future.
“We have to be straightforward — Alpine are ahead of us on points this year, they were ahead of us on points last year as well. I recognize all of that,” Vowles said. “What he’s buying into is what can we provide over the next two years and what’s the direction of travel?
“Look at us this year — we’re back in ninth. Is that where we should be? Not if the car was on the weight limit, but that’s on our shoulders. No one else caused that but ourselves as we changed technologies.
“However, the bit that I am excited by is we are pretty consistently 10th from ’21, ’22, and in ’23, do I think we should have been seventh? I think we got fortunate because AlphaTauri were very quick towards the end and it was a matter of a strategic decision that really decided whether we were eighth or seventh, and we had huge tumbles of points but at very few events.
“What I want to produce is a car that is good everywhere with the right foundations behind it, and as I’ve said that will cost us in the short term but pay back in the long term — that’s the direction of travel we’re in.
“It’s monumental to beat these two organizations, because they are both incredible organizations in their own right. We can’t underestimate them. The moment we do is the moment you lose to them in the championship. But what Carlos recognized from us — and much of it you won’t see, and will never see, I’m afraid, but I did expose it to him — is what we’re changing on the inside, and that’s what’s exciting.”
