Zak O’Sullivan will drive an FW45 in FP1, while Franco Colapinto will join his fellow F3 graduate in sharing driving duties in the following week’s young driver test.
Sir Frank Williams always had a soft spot for rookies. Just consider that the list of those who made their F1 race debuts with the team includes David Coulthard, Jacques Villeneuve, Jenson Button, Juan Pablo Montoya, Nico Rosberg, Nico Hulkenberg, Pastor Maldonado, Valtteri Bottas, Lance Stroll and George Russell.
The Williams Driver Academy was formed to make the process of bringing youngsters through the ranks a little more formal, and it was the conduit that took Nicholas Latifi and Logan Sargeant into F1.
The programme was only ever going to become stronger when James Vowles came on board as team principal at the start of this year.
At Mercedes grooming newcomers was one of his main tasks, and as such he has a good understanding of the junior categories, and a network of contacts across teams and managers.
Williams now has a roster that arguably matches those of Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari and others in terms of potential.
"First of all, as Williams, but also for me, it's tremendously important to be investing in our young driver programme,” Vowles tells Autosport. “We have an active young driver programme, I think Williams across the history of certainly, probably the last 20 years on and off, has been very good at bringing young drivers through it.
“Obviously my link was directly through George here just a few years ago. And the results can be really, really, positive.”
Source: Autosport