James Vowles has revealed that the main reason Williams F1 chose to replace Logan Sargeant with Franco Colapinto was the Argentine’s ability to perform well, not a financial issue.
“The reason we put him in the car is because he is part of our academy in the first place, and I believe in investing in our academy.” Vowles explained on the F1 Beyond the Grid podcast.
The Briton recalls that finances were not a strong point for the Argentinian: “If I ask everyone to trace his career in as much detail as we did, and that’s why he’s here, you’ll see that he never had a tryout or sometimes not even a tryout. simulator work that goes with it.”
“He went where the finances took him and when he was in those teams he did an incredible job without any kilometers under his belt. In 2024 he started to develop in Formula 2, and that’s why we rewarded him by entrusting him with the wheel of EL1 at Silverstone.”
But Colapinto immediately got into the swing of things during his first tests, which confirmed his good figures in the simulator: “I was a little surprised by how quickly he reacted. So I talked to him about it. He was very relaxed.”
“He told me it might never happen again, so I just enjoyed the moment. In simulator land, he has the same pace as Alex. And he’s a good simulator, so we are able to compare where we are.”
During his debut in Italy, Colapinto gave a speech to the team, and Vowles remembers him captivating the team: “We had a first team talk with him at Monza, and he asked me what he should say. I said ‘speak from your heart, you’re good at that, talk to people’. And That’s what he did.”
“And there are two things I would say. He was at home. He had a captive audience of the entire race team who only wanted him to succeed, but I had to cut off his dialogue after four minutes, because we were going to run out of time.”
“Because he speaks from his heart, there are a lot of things to say. But he is at home. You don’t relax so quickly if you don’t have confidence in what you can do. And he’s grateful, incredibly grateful for the opportunity.”
