Williams boss James Vowles has revealed Franco Colapinto’s 2025 plans in light of the Argentine driver missing out on a seat in F1 next year.
Colapinto, 21, replaced Logan Sargeant after August’s Dutch Grand Prix and impressed with a few early top-10 finishes in Baku and Austin, as well as an impressive first-lap overtake in Singapore.
Yet two costly crashes in Sao Paulo and Las Vegas resulted in interest from Red Bull and Alpine cooling in recent weeks. There is no available seat for Colapinto at Williams next year, with Carlos Sainz joining from Ferrari to partner Alex Albon, while Liam Lawson has replaced Sergio Perez at Red Bull and Isack Hadjar has taken the second seat at Racing Bulls.
While the situation was unclear at Red Bull with regards to Perez’s future, Vowles explained to The Independent the plans in place for the popular Argentine should he not land an F1 seat for next year.
“We’ll make sure he’s running a historic car testing programme, TPC [Testing of Previous Cars] we call it,” Vowles said. “That will keep him fresh and honest.
“He’ll do full testing, TPC testing, simulator work. He’ll come here with us to be a reserve driver at the same time.”
On his future beyond that, with Cadillac set to join the sport as an 11th team in 2026, Vowles added: “I’m fairly sure he’s well enough respected in the business that he won’t only be a third driver here, but the other teams would very much like an opportunity to help Franco as well.
“We’ve been discussing [seats] with other teams. For transparency, not with Cadillac.
“I want to make sure he has a successful career. If we can’t offer that, then we’ll find a position for him and see what we can offer him in the future.”
Vowles held talks with Red Bull boss Christian Horner about Colapinto joining his team next year in Brazil, though no deal was agreed.
And while Colapinto held out hope that a seat within the Red Bull ecosystem would be possible – whether it be the main team or RB – Lawson’s promotion to Red Bull and Hadjar’s RB selection means there is no open seat on the grid for the 21-year-old next year.
As well as his reserve driver duties with Williams, Colapinto could also pursue appearances in other racing series’, such as the World Endurance Championship or the European Le Mans Series.
Colapinto failed to finish in three of the final four races of the 2024 season. He was forced to retire at the season finale in Abu Dhabi due to a power unit issue.
