At first Oscar Piastri was supposed to drive for Williams, then hopes were pinned on Nyck de Vries, but in the end neither of them will be in the car in 2023
As one of only two teams, Williams still has a Formula 1 cockpit to give away for 2023. Who will drive alongside Alexander Albon is still open. The only thing that is certain so far is that they will part with Nicholas Latifi after three years.
“We need someone who can push Alex and fight with him in every race,” says performance director Dave Robson about the requirements profile of the second driver. “Ideally it would be someone with similar demands on the car, but we’ll see. We just want to have two competitive cars pushing each other in Q2, Q3 and beyond.”
Latifi has not actually been able to fulfil that role at any time this year. Although the Canadian scored his first two points in Suzuka and is thus “only” two points behind Albon, the team-internal duel nevertheless clearly speaks against him: he is 3:14 behind in the qualifying duel and benefited from a disqualification and a defect with Albon in Melbourne and Imola.
In the race duel he is 4:12 down – but only once did he see the chequered flag before his team-mate when both cars were at the finish (to the overview of the 2022 duels).
Formula 2 driver Logan Sargeant is currently the most highly rated replacement, who will also be allowed to contest the first practice session for the team in Austin. However, the American is at most the third choice at Williams. The plan was for Alpine to lend Oscar Piastri to the team, but he declined and will instead start his first season with McLaren in 2023.
They were also interested in Nyck de Vries, who had brilliantly replaced Albon in Monza, as team boss Jost Capito had confirmed. But the Dutchman recommended himself for higher tasks during his Italian guest appearance and decided to join AlphaTauri.
All the driver cancellations would not destabilise Williams, though, as Robson points out, “At the track we are focused on the here and now anyway,” he says. “When Nyck jumped in the car at Monza, we were able to just switch our focus and concentrate on that. “
“The engineers don’t take too much notice of the speculation about next year at the weekend,” says Robson.
“Yes, there’s preparation going on in the background, but that’s being taken care of by Jost and his team and our job is to focus on the weekend ahead, push the car forward and then set the specifications for next year’s car, regardless of who’s driving it. “