Martins to make F1 practice debut in Barcelona with Williams

Victor Martins will make his debut during a Formula 1 race weekend when he takes part in FP1 for Williams at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Williams has two drivers currently competing at the front in Formula 2, with Martins and Luke Browning, and the latter now leads the championship. Browning took part in FP1 in Bahrain, but as teams have to run rookies on four occasions, Williams will complete the second outing by using Martins on Friday in Barcelona, in what will be the Frenchman’s FP1 debut.

“I’m super happy to be taking the wheel of the FW47 for the first time in Barcelona!” Martins said. “It will be an incredible experience to drive for the team. I’m working hard to prepare as much as possible to maximize my time in the car and make it a valuable session for myself and the team.

“I’m hugely grateful to everyone at Atlassian Williams Racing for giving me this opportunity and I’m looking forward to enjoying every second of it!”

Martins started from the front row in the feature race in Monaco and looked set to lead into Turn 1 but was involved in an incident with pole-sitter Alex Dunne that took both out of the race, dropping him to eighth in the standings. Despite that recent disappointment, Williams says it is his work on an F1 front that has been catching the eye so far this year, having tested a 2023 car under testing of previous car (TPC) running at Monza.

“We’re proud that Victor will be taking part in his first Formula 1 session with Atlassian Williams Racing in Barcelona,” sporting director Sven Smeets said. “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 TPC program and simulator work in Grove have prepared him well and we look forward to seeing him in the garage this weekend.”

Martins only joined the Williams academy at the start of this season having previously been part of the Alpine set-up, and he will drive Alex Albon’s car on Friday.

Topics

formula 1

williams racing

victor martins

spanish grand prix

fw47

sven smeets

f2 championship

atlassian williams racing

Formula 1

Chris Medland

While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three further years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor. Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, his broadcast work includes television appearances on F1 TV and as a presenter and reporter on North America's live radio coverage on SiriusXM.

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