Williams have announced Nicholas Latifi will leave the British Formula One team at the end of the season.
The 27-year-old Canadian, who was subjected to death threats and hired security protection following his crash at last season’s Abu Dhabi finale which led to a late safety car and denied Lewis Hamilton a record eighth world championship, exits the grid after three years with Williams.
Latifi has failed to score a point this year, and was outclassed by debutant Nyck de Vries who stood in for Alex Albon at the recent Italian Grand Prix.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at Williams Racing – all the people back at the factory and those I work with trackside – for the last three years,” said Latifi.
“My initial F1 debut was postponed due to the pandemic but we eventually got going in Austria and, although we have not achieved the results together we hoped we would, it’s still been a fantastic journey.
“Getting those first points in Hungary last year was a moment I’ll never forget, and I will move on to the next chapter of my career with special memories of my time with this dedicated team. I know none of us will stop putting in every effort until the end of the season.”
Dutchman De Vries, 27, is under consideration to replace Latifi, while the team’s American academy driver Logan Sargeant, 21, is another contender.
Williams, who have already confirmed Albon will be retained for 2023, said they will announce their full line-up for next season in “due course”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here