An article over at F1 says that Williams boss, Jost Capito, is open to a possible seat for Aston Martin reserve driver, Nico Hulkenberg.
“I think at the moment we do not exclude any driver who would be available next year and Nico is available for next year, so we’ve got quite a long list.”
“The main thing is, we want to have the best drivers that are available and interested to drive for Williams and interested in doing the job for Williams. It’s not definitely the driver who wants to be world champion next year – for us, he would be in the wrong team,” said Capito.
“We need drivers who are willing to support the team, to get the team back, to lead the team, and to improve performance. At the moment we can see the interest in drivers to get to Williams is increasing.
“I would say it’s because of the positive steps we’ve done recently. I think we are well-funded and this is known, and we getting the steps in the right direction, we hope we continue in this so we are working hard to continue in that and this makes Williams an interesting team for a driver to be there in the future,” he concluded.
I’m not sure how you read this but I get the sense that George is already gone be it with Mercedes (most likely) or even another team. I doubt Jost is considering a move for Nicholas Latifi’s seat as his father invested heavily in the team’s historic race cars, I’m not sure that would be the first choice. Having said that, I can’t recall if Dorilton Capital bought Latifi out of that mortgage.
Regardless if there is any continuing financial entanglement with Latifi, it does sound like Williams wants to move a step up with drivers who can help develop the team. Wonder if Valtteri Bottas would ever consider going back to Williams?
