James Vowles has good praise of Franco Colapinto as he expands on what has made the move from Williams F1 Team stick after Logan Sargeant’s drop.
While it could be termed as a gamble from Williams, but Vowles notes how they calculated the progress of Colapinto from when he joined them as a junior until the time they got him the F1 seat. The team boss was monitoring the kind of progress he made in F2 and also the lone FP1 he did in British GP.
He made immediate impact too which only justified the promotion and instincts, having already scored for Williams. “He’s done an absolutely outstanding job,” said Vowles to media. “Just really jumped straight into it, two feet first, and has been swimming ever since. But he’s doing brilliantly well.
“And to score points in your second ever Grand Prix, to be a few seconds behind Alex, is extraordinary. We knew he was quick, that’s why we put him in the car, but expected him to take more time to get up to speed.
“In Monza, that was about what I would have hoped for, effectively, but going to a new track that you’ve never been to before and been on the pace, really, in FP1, and even after an accident, coming straight back onto the pace is a challenge, and he’s very, very good at absorbing all the pressure that’s on his shoulders and just delivering,” summed up Vowles.
When asked what has impressed him about Colapinto, Vowles noted about handling pressure well. The Sargeant’s seat has been talked about a lot for a year and lining up against Alexander Albon is no easy feat. But his approach and straight up pace has caught the eyes of everyone, whether the pundits and or fans.
Vowles also shared behind the scenes work done by Williams to aide Colapinto in his progress. “How calm he is under pressure,” he started. “There’s a huge amount of… It’s always hard to describe what happens to these elite athletes when you step up into Formula 1. It’s a completely different world and the pressure mounts exponentially and he takes it all in his stride.
“You can hear over the radio, just listen to his voice. He’s just incredibly calm and collected and just wants more information, more information. So it’s a sign of a really good individual that’s able to cope with what’s happening. It’s an interesting question [if we could have taken him earlier], because in part a lot of what we were doing with him behind the scenes is developing him ready for this opportunity.
“So Silverstone was one of the first times he got into the car and he’d made a step clearly from where we were in Abu Dhabi the previous year. He made some steps across the winter. He’d made some steps in Formula 2. If we’d done this at the beginning of the year, I don’t think you’d see the Franco you have today.
“And I think there’s quite a bit of preparation that we’ve been doing in the simulator and otherwise to get him to the region where he is now. In terms of that regret, I mean, making a decision to take a driver out is one of the hardest things you can do in my position. And I had to make sure it was abundantly clear it was the right place. And for me, at the point where we upgraded the car and we’ve delivered performance with it, where it can score points, that’s the right line in the sand. So from that perspective, I’m content.”
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