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Sergio Perez hoped that Williams junior driver, Franco Colapinto, would get a permanent seat in F1 after his decent performance in the first few races of his career. Checo also touched on the inconsistency in the F2 championship and how it affects good drivers like Colapinto.
In the first three F1 races of his career in Italy, Azerbaijan, and Singapore, Colapinto showed tremendous pace and was nearly on par with his teammate, Alex Albon. He scored a total of four points out of his first three races.
Seeing this, Red Bull's Sergio Perez praised Colapinto's performances right after he jumped in an F1 car. Speaking before the Singapore GP, Checo said that he hoped that the youngster gets a seat in F1, especially in Audi (currently Sauber), since that is one of the very few seats that are still up for grabs on the grid.
The Mexican further added that returning to F2 would be a massive risk to Colapinto's career, after which he gave his take on the unpredictable nature of F1's feeder series (via PitDebrief) :
"I really hope for Franco that he’s able to find that Audi seat for him. It would be a shame that after the job that he’s doing, he doesn’t get a seat for next year. Because again, that can risk his career. You know, going back to F2 and not having a straightforward year," Perez said.
In the Dutch GP practice session, Logan Sargeant crashed hard at turn 4, bringing out red flags. After the American driver struggled quite a lot in the sport in the past one and a half years, Williams decided it was time to part ways with the youngster. They managed to hire Ferrari's Carlos Sainz for the 2025 season but soon decided that Sargeant needed to be removed mid-season.
Before the Italian GP, they announced that Sargeant was to be replaced by their junior driver, Franco Colapinto.
Sergio Perez pinpoints issues regarding recognizing talents in the F2 Championship
While praising and rooting for Franco Colapinto, Sergio Perez also touched on the difficulties in recognizing talents from the F2 Championship. In the same conversation, the Red Bull driver explained how youngsters like Colapinto and Bearman were not winning races and fighting for championships in F2, but they were great in F1 in recent races.
Pointing this out, Sergio Perez commented that scouting for drivers who are capable of the pinnacle of sport becomes difficult because of car and performance-related issues that have reportedly plagued F2 drivers. Perez felt that the feeder series seniors should look into resolving the discrepancies and problems to make it easier to assess a driver's talent.
"When you think about it, they’re not the guys winning. But then they come in and they do a fantastic job. You must think the guys that are winning probably are out of this world. So, it’s hard to understand which are the good drivers in F2," Perez said.
"Having a couple of stalls with both cars. I think F2 has some work to do with their championship," he added.
As of now, Williams has only chosen Franco Colapinto to replace Sargeant and drive for them till the end of 2024. In 2025, Carlos Sainz will join the British team as a permanent driver.
