Williams chose Colapinto because Schumacher “isn’t special”

Williams team principal James Vowles recalled the decision process that will lead to Franco Colapinto making his F1 debut, as the team turned down options in Liam Lawson and Mick Schumacher.

Although Schumacher was heavily linked to Logan Sargeant’s seat in the wake of the Dutch Grand Prix, while Red Bull boss Christian Horner threw Lawson’s hat into the ring, the team elected to install Colapinto alongside Alex Albon for the remainder of the year.

Vowles explained that Lawson was discounted relatively quickly; the Kiwi driver had been an impressive stand-in for Daniel Ricciardo in 2023, and Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko is keen to find him a full-time drive.

However, Red Bull wanted a recall clause as part of his reserve role, and Vowles did not wish to risk having to make another change.

This led to a direct choice between Colapinto and Schumacher and, although Vowles noted that the German had improved since his time at Haas, he didn’t foresee a significant performance argument in taking him – suggesting that he “isn’t special” overall.

“If we go through what our options were available to us, there were sort of three options on the table: one was Liam Lawson, one was Mick and one was Franco.

“With Liam, the contractual sort of position of Red Bull wouldn’t have worked with me here at Williams so that didn’t become an option for us in that circumstance. And then it’s a tough choice, it really is between [Franco and] Mick.

“Mick has improved a lot from where he was in Haas, there is no doubt about it. He’s a competent driver that I know he had his time but he has done incredible work with Alpine, with Mercedes and with McLaren in the meantime.

“So the decision is do we put Mick in the car, which I think Mick would have done a good job, or do we invest in an individual that’s a part of our academy, that’s done hundreds to thousands of laps in our simulator, that’s driven the car, and on the data that we can see from how he’s performing, who’s making significant steps?

“I think both would fall into a category of good and not special. I think we have to be straightforward about this. Mick isn’t special, he would just be good.”

Vowles continued, adding that it would be remiss for Williams not to take an academy member given the resources that have been invested into bringing younger drivers through the ranks.

He…