Lewis Hamilton salutes the work accomplished by Franco Colapinto since his debut at Monza. The young Williams F1 driver replaced Logan Sargeant at short notice after just one FP1 at Silverstone, and he has already scored points twice.
“I think he did an incredible job” Hamilton said. “It was at the last minute that we called on him and threw him into the deep end of this sport. The majority of us, if we are lucky enough to get into this sport, have a little preparation.”
“If you look at young Kimi [Antonelli] for example, he has many days of testing before his first race. I think he'll have more than 20 days or something in the car, which is unprecedented.”
“As for Franco, he didn't have that chance. He jumped straight in and did a fantastic job. It's always great to see young talents come through and get the opportunity to shine. I think that he did in the first race.”
“We had a nice little battle. It was very safe. It was tough but fair and I think he's earned his right to be here. There's still a place available. He says it's not It's not up to him to decide, but my advice would be to push and do absolutely whatever it takes.”
“At the end of the day, he just has to focus on his job every weekend, like he does. Hopefully he has good people behind him doing the right job to make sure he's there to race next year.”
Max Verstappen thinks that the Argentinian deserves his place in Formula 1 but that his situation is delicate because of the teams' reluctance towards young people: “This question is difficult to answer because he is still under contract with Williams. Williams is probably scratching his head as to what they are going to do with Franco.”
“But for me, personally, it shows that teams in general need to be more open to putting young talent in place and trusting them. Now you have this kind of situation where he's a junior at Williams and potentially has to leave to find a place next year.”
“They could have put him in their car. So it's complicated. Does he deserve a place on the grid? I think with what he's shown so far, yes. But he's not It’s not easy to find a place at the moment.”
