Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Victor Martins will drive for Williams in free practice one at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, where he will also hope to end his points-free run in Formula 2.
The ART Grand Prix driver was rapid in Monaco last weekend, leading F2 practice by 0.616 seconds and topping his qualifying group. But a clash with Oliver Goethe consigned him to 17th in the sprint race, and colliding with his MP Motorsport team-mate Alex Dunne meant he did not get past the feature race’s opening corner.
He has only scored in four races out of nine this year and sits eighth in the standings, but his impressive pace — qualifying in the top three at every round — has been rewarded by Williams with a maiden Formula 1 practice call-up.
“I’m super happy to be taking the wheel of the FW47 for the first time in Barcelona,” said the 23-year-old.
“It will be an incredible experience to drive for the team. I’m working hard to prepare as much as possible to maximise my time in the car and make it a valuable session for myself and the team. I’m hugely grateful to everyone at Williams for giving me this opportunity and I’m looking forward to enjoying every second of it!”
Martins will take over Alex Albon’s car, and his practice outing comes after testing Williams’ 2023 chassis last month.
“We’re proud that Victor will be taking part in his first F1 session with us in Barcelona,” Wiiliams’ sporting director Sven Smeets added.
“He continues to demonstrate that he is a talented driver, and this session is an important step forward in his career as part of the Academy. His participation in our Testing of Previous Cars programme and simulator work in Grove have prepared him well.”
Martins shared his thoughts about the Monaco feature race on Instagram: “Just no words to describe how I felt on Sunday after having got taken out at the start while in the lead… Once again we were just flying, the car was a BEAST all weekend but lately there is always something on our way! Again and again we will never give up.”
He had told media, including Formula Scout, about how he was unhappy with qualifying second.
“It was a bit of a messy session. I was not really happy about my laps. My second lap – I did a mistake and so then I was on the back foot for the two more laps in the end,” Martins explained.
“They kind of caught me a bit with my first lap, which was really good. But then you don’t have the same confidence approaching the last two push laps. Definitely I feel I had much more, but in the end it’s tight.”
On the tiny margin he missed out by, he added: ” I can redo the session 100 times, I can find 0.003s everywhere, every metre. Probably on one millimetre, upshifting. So definitely I need to not be too much frustrated about that.”