Another newcomer, and one who won’t have to wait his turn: “Franco Colapinto, the Argentine driver currently competing in F2 and drafted in only this week to replace Logan Sargeant at Williams, acquitted himself very well in his F1 debut to take 18th place. On Sunday, he will be the first Argentine since Gastón Mazzacane in 2001 to compete in F1 and the second, after Carlos Reutemann, to race for Williams.”
You have to feel sorry for Logan Sargeant.
And this would be a seismic move, a huge blow to Fizzy Drink team.
It’s been a week of big news on the F1 scene.
The young driver crashed out of his first competitive run in an F1 car, in practice at Monza after just five laps but the team principal Toto Wolff said he would rather have the problem of slowing down a fast driver than vice versa.
We really have a world title chase on our hands. Exciting, right? Lando Norris on pole, Max Verstappen seventh on the grid. There’s just 70 points in the title chase which seems a lot though Max is getting a bit antsy about his machine’s speed next to the McClaren. And nine races, and 254 points to be won. This is old-school stuff, rather than the procession of recent years. Exciting, risk-taking drivers, not completely foolproof motors, and it will probably look good on Netflix, too. It’s been a better, more exciting season than most expected, and it could get better yet. This vintage old lady of a track could see some real fireworks.
Top ten grid positions:
1. Lando Norris
2. Oscar Piastri
3. George Russell
4. Charles Leclerc
5. Carlos Sainz
6. Lewis Hamilton
7. Max Verstappen
8. Sergio Perez
9. Alex Albon
10. Nico Hulkenberg
11. Fernando Alonso
12. Daniel Ricciardo
13. Kevin Magnussen
14. Pierre Gasly
15. Esteban Ocon
16. Yuki Tsunoda
17. Lance Stroll
18. Franco Colapinto
19. Valtteri Botta
20. Zhou Guanyu