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Williams: Cancellations Piastri and De Vries do not affect performance

15 October 2022 at 15:30
Last update 15 October 2022 at 19:14
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  • GPblog.com

Williams still has not finalised its line-up for 2023. Alexander Albon will once again defend the colours of the Grove-based racing stable, but who will take his place alongside him is not yet known and that could take some time now that intended candidates Oscar Piastri and Nyck de Vries have made other choices. Dave Robson, however, assures that the noisy silly season will not affect Wiliams' performance.

Initially, the intention was for Piastri to be leased from Alpine for one or two seasons, so that the young Australian could then start replacing Fernando Alonso at the French formation. However, it ended up being a multi-year McLaren contract for Piastri. Jost Capito would have liked to recruit De Vries as an alternative, but after his great performance at Monza, AlphaTauri was on the doorstep and Williams once again missed out.

The biggest contender now seems to be in-house junior Logan Sargeant, but the American is not yet sure of his super licence. For that, he needs to finish in the top-four in the Formula 2 championship. If everything stays as it is with one Grand Prix to go, that is a certainty, but even P10 can still pass Sargeant. Only after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix will Williams have more clarity on that.

Williams focusing on what it needs to focus on

So Williams has had to keep shifting gears in the transfer market, but according to performance director Dave Robson, this is not at the expense of performance on track or in the garage. "On the track, we are focused on the here and now anyway. The engineers at the weekend don't care much about speculation about next year," said the top man in conversation with Motorsport-Total.com.

Robson agrees that there is a lot going on in the background in preparation for 2023. However, those issues are all being taken up by team boss Jost Capito and those around him. For Robson and his men, the task is to focus on what is to come, improve the car and then set the specifications for next year's car.