Nicolas Latifi - More Than Just Memes?

 

So, its happened. Williams have announced that Nicolas Latifi will not be driving for them next year and it very much looks like he will not be picked up by any other team so this could be the end of Latifi's time in Formula 1. This makes me ask the question how will Latifi's F1 career be remembered and it seems that the answer I keep on getting is memes. The Goatifi meme's have taken over F1 Twitter but does Latifi deserve better? 

Latifi joined Formula 1 in 2020 coming off the back of finishing 2nd in the 2019 F2 championship. Latifi joined the struggling Williams team who had just had the worst season in their history only scoring 1 point all year. Unfortunately it would get worse for Williams who would finish the 2020 season with 0 points. Although it was Latifi who would get closest to scoring points more often than his highly acclaimed teammate George Russell, Latifi finished 11th three times to Russell's one including a 11th on debut for Latifi (9 of the 20 drivers did retire from that race but we can ignore that). 

2021 would be better for Latifi scoring his first points for the team in the chaotic Hungarian Grand Prix finishing 7th which is still the highest finishing position for a Williams car in a 100% race in 5 years. Spa 2021 would become the bane of Latifi's 2021 as if you were to take the mess of a race away Latifi would have finished the season 1 point ahead of George Russell which is no mean feat.

At the time George Russell had the nickname Mr Saturday as he was the man who was able to put that Williams in places it wasn't supposed to be in qualifying with his incredible one lap pace. At the start of the season Russell was able to beat Latifi easily going 0.6 seconds faster than him in the season opener in Bahrain and on 4 separate occasions Russell was able to go over a second quicker than Latifi in qualifying but but as the season progressed we saw Latifi improve his qualifying. At Interlagos 2021 Russell got beaten by his teammate in qualifying for the first time ever in his career which at that point had been 3 years long as Latifi was able to post a time 0.056 quicker than Russell. Latifi would then repeat this accomplishment at the season closer in Abu Dhabi going 0.085 quicker than Russell. 

I guess now it is time to talk about Abu Dhabi 2021. If there is one thing that Latifi will be remembered for more than memes it will be his crash that caused the safety car to come out which led to the controversial ending of the race where Max Verstappen would beat Lewis Hamilton to the 2022 world championship. This crash and the effects it had on the championship led to Latifi getting a lot of online hate and even death threats leading to him deactivating his social media accounts. In an interview on the High Performance Podcast, Williams boss Jost Capito said that this knocked his confidence and he was unable to get it back and this directly affected his driving. Jost said "I’m sure it affected his driving after that. It would have affected my driving a lot, I am absolutely convinced of this." 

This lack of confidence lead to some very disappointing results in the 2022 season. He has been beaten by his new teammate Alex Albon in 12 of the 15 races they have had as teammates so far. As well as being beaten by stand in Nyck De Vries at the Italian GP leading to Latifi being officially ranked at 21st in a championship of 20 full time drivers as he has not yet scored a point. There were some highlights for Latifi's year such as his first ever Q3 appearance in a wet qualifying session at Silverstone and putting his Williams first in FP3 in Hungary meaning that in 2022 he has topped as many sessions as Gasly, Bottas, Norris, Alonso and Hamilton, but even this would seemingly not be enough to save Latifi as in September it was announced that he would be leaving the Williams team.  

It is difficult to speak about Latifi without mentioning the elephant in the room which is money. In the eyes of a lot of fans being a pay driver is a very dirty thing. It is often thought that a pay driver is in the car due to the money they bring rather than their talent. Being a pay driver can bring a lot of unnecessary hate, just ask Lance Stroll. We have seen a lot of them throughout the history of Formula 1 and they range in talent from Nikita Mazepin to Michael Schumacher. But Formula 1 is a expensive sport to be in never mind be competitive. 2019 saw world champions Mercedes spend $484 million where as bottom of the table Williams spent $132 million. It is no wonder that Williams would look to someone like Latifi to boost their spending. Latifi has major sponsorship deals with Lavazza Coffee and The Royal Bank Of Canada this is without mentioning his billionaire father without whom the Williams racing team very well may not exist today.  

 

In 2020 Williams F1 team were in a bad way. The team was forced to furlough staff and strip 20% of driver and senior executive salaries. It was looking like the beginning of the end for the legendary team. This was until a $100 million loan was given to them from the Latifi family. This loan kept the team afloat and without that the team may not be here today.

In conclusion on his day Latifi could deliver a great performance and his career was stunted  by a complete lack of confidence but I hope that maybe one day he gets his due and gets remembered for being more than just a meme, he does love Nutella though