‘Remarkable’ F1 driver now at risk of losing seat before season ends thanks to Franco Colapinto

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Franco Colapinto is showing that Williams made the correct decision to replace Logan Sargeant and his impact may now see another Formula 1 team drop their driver soon.

In just his second race in the pinnacle of motorsport, Colapinto helped Williams to a double points-scoring finish in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The four points the 21-year-old earned in Baku were even four times the total that Sergeant scored through his 37 Grand Prix entries.

Sargeant only ever scored one fortuitous point in Formula 1 after adopting P10 in the 2023 United States Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified. Williams would ultimately elect to terminate Sargeant’s contract early due to his costly crashes, too.

Franco Colapinto’s impact at Williams could see Audi drop Sauber driver Zhou Guanyu

The final nail in Sargeant’s Williams career was his needless crash in FP3 for the 2024 Dutch Grand Prix when the Fort Lauderdale, Florida native drove onto the wet grass, wrecking his FW46 in a high-speed crash. So, Colapinto will see out the season before Carlos Sainz joins.

Colapinto has already impressed since the Williams junior moved up from Formula 2 for his Formula 1 debut, too. The Argentinean finished the Italian Grand Prix in P12 after qualifying in P18, before finishing the Azerbaijan GP in P8 after qualifying ahead of Alex Albon with P9.

READ MORE: Everything to know about Williams driver Franco Colapinto with praise to stats

His four points in Baku further helped Williams move above Alpine in the constructors’ table with 16 points to 13 this season. Colapinto’s impact has also not gone amiss for Audi, which is considering dropping Zhou Guanyu before the season ends so Sauber improve their form.

That is according to Blick, which notes that Zhou ‘will be lucky’ to finish the 2024 Formula 1 season and not see Audi put a young driver in his Sauber seat. The 25-year-old is likely to be on the way out of Hinwil, Switzerland at the end of this year anyway once his contract ends.

Valtteri Bottas is dominating Zhou Guanyu in their Grand Prix head-to-head battles

Sauber are rooted to 10th and last place in the constructors’ championship as the only team still yet to score a single point this year. Zhou has recorded their best single Grand Prix result so far this year with P11, but the Chinese driver’s best finish came in the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Zhou, who Frederic Vasseur has called ‘remarkable’, has also out-qualified teammate Valtteri Bottas just once across 17 Grand Prix. Instead, he is losing 16-1 in their head-to-head as well as losing 11-6 for Grand Prix results. Bottas’ best results were P13 in Monaco and in Canada.

READ MORE: F1 2024 teammate head-to-head battles including race, Sprint and qualifying

Audi takes an extremely dim view of Sauber’s struggles this year ahead of turning them into its works Formula 1 entry in 2026. So, the German automotive giant is considering dropping Zhou before his contract expires given the impact that Colapinto has produced for Williams.