Williams share new information after Franco Colapinto’s $500k-a-race sponsorship rumours

Williams boss James Vowles insists that Franco Colapinto’s team offered no financial incentives for an F1 seat, but did reveal new information in that “other sources” did put “finances” on the table for the seat.

The Dutch Grand Prix proved to be Logan Sargeant’s 36th and final start with Williams, the American racer suffering a further and final heavy crash during the third practice session, with Williams having introduced an upgraded FW46 at Zandvoort.

Williams insist no sponsor money linked to Franco Colapinto

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher and Sam Cooper

As speculation strengthened that Sargeant was facing the mid-season axe, the likes of Red Bull reserve Liam Lawson and Mercedes reserve Mick Schumacher began to emerge as options, but Williams would look to their academy and promote Formula 2 star Colapinto into a race seat for the final nine rounds of F1 2024.

Following the announcement, speculation emerged that Colapinto, through sponsor backing, was paying Williams $500,000 per race for the opportunity, though Vowles has stressed this is not the case.

However, while Colapinto brought no financial backing with him at the point of getting the seat, Vowles said a flood of sponsors from Colapinto’s native Argentina have since been in touch to get their branding on the FW46.

“What I’ll make very clear to everyone here is no sponsorship was linked to signing him,” Vowles told media including PlanetF1.com.

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“Actually, we signed him at the point of not knowing anything in future. What then transpired, and it hasn’t finished yet, the phone is still ringing off the hook, is a number of Argentine companies, of which there are many, are calling, and they’re paying market rate for stickers on the car fundamentally.

“So it’s nothing related to Franco, they want to be part of the journey and part of the journey beyond 2024, just to be clear as well, or I hope many will, we’ll see where we end up.

“But you’ll see stickers appearing on the car around Baku time. I’m not sure how many at the moment, because genuinely, we are getting huge amounts of interest from Argentina.

“But at the point of choosing Franco, there was no finance involved in that.

“And to be really blunt on it as well, there was finance being offered on the table from other sources. That’s not of interest. This is about investing in our academy and in our future.”

Williams’ F1 2025 driver line-up is already set with Carlos Sainz to arrive from Ferrari to partner Alex Albon.

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