Williams team principal James Vowles has lavished praise on rookie Franco Colapinto after the Argentine delivered an impressive top-10 qualifying result in just his second Formula 1 race weekend at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The young driver’s performance comes despite an early setback when he crashed during Friday’s practice, cutting his session short and leaving the team scrambling for repairs.
Colapinto, who had never raced on Baku’s tricky street circuit before, rebounded from his FP1 crash with a stunning Q3 appearance, securing ninth on the grid. His performance also saw him outqualify his more experienced teammate, Alex Albon, marking the first time since the 2022 British Grand Prix that anyone other than Albon has qualified ahead in a Williams.
Vowles, who made the bold decision to replace Logan Sargeant with Colapinto midway through the season, said the 21-year-old was already proving the switch was the right call.
“I hope the world can see what we were seeing now and why he deserves a chance in that seat,” Vowles told SiriusXM. “He’s made me proud, he really has — second race weekend, track he’s never been to before, made a mistake, but he bounced back.”
After missing much of FP1 and narrowly avoiding another crash in FP2, Colapinto’s resilience and steady improvement in FP3 allowed him to shine in qualifying. Despite a minor error in the castle section that cost him around 0.3 seconds, Vowles was full of admiration for the rookie’s recovery and qualifying pace.
“He built back up gently into FP3, and qualifying is qualifying. That’s where you shine, and he was outstanding,” Vowles said. “He’s fighting Alex, who’s immensely strong. It’s a good accolade.”
Albon’s qualifying, however, was marred by a bizarre incident in Q3. The team accidentally left a cooling fan plugged into his car’s airbox, forcing Albon to stop at the pit exit and remove the fan himself, costing him valuable time. As a result, he missed the opportunity to complete a final flying lap.
Vowles acknowledged the mistake, attributing it to a compressed turnaround time and a failure in protocol. “We installed a permanent fan rather than holding a temporary fan, which we shouldn’t have done given the short time available,” he explained. “We’ve got to go through why that happened and how we could have caught it earlier.”
Despite the error, Williams heads into Sunday’s race with both cars in the top 10, behind only Fernando Alonso among the midfield teams. Vowles remains optimistic that both Colapinto and Albon can convert their strong grid positions into valuable points.
“The long runs on Friday were competitive relative to Aston Martin,” Vowles said. “We should be in a position where we are at least fighting with them. The real focus is two cars finishing in the points. That has to be what we walk away with.”
With Colapinto showing early promise and Albon’s pace still strong, Williams looks set to battle it out for crucial points in what has been an intensely competitive midfield this season.
