Latifi Out

[Willy]

Williams has announced Latifi will be out at the end of his 2022 contract.
No surprise as he was in over his head from the get-go.
The final nail in that coffin was the immediate pace of newcomer de Vries who managed to out-qualify and outgun Latifi in the same car setup.

I was rather proud to see two Canadian drivers on the grid as we don't have many who can compete at that level it seems here in the Great White North.
 
To reach a seat in an F1 car takes a huge amount of money and years of commitment and I applaud any who can get there.

[Alianora La Canta]

Latifi made a good effort and has, I think, found his level. I hope he finds happiness wherever he goes next.

[Andy B]

I have to disagree Ali he has never performed well in F1 and I am surprised he has lasted so long.

[John S]

I can see both Alia & Andy points are equally valid. I'm sure Latifi has put a great effort into his F1 racing. Unfortunately he is only journeyman level and this is so hard when you are in a car at the back of the grid. Many others before have managed to fashion a longer career by being a reliable No 2 in midfield teams, but right down the back you're a sitting duck.

Without his Father's large cash injections he may not have survived this long, indeed he may not have got the drive in the first place. However he has not disgraced himself by over reaching/driving thus giving his team endless repair bills, so I reckon that shows he's not a spoiled brat either.

Hate to think how much his Pa has stumped up to put & keep him on the grid - it wont be a small fortune, but a rather large one. 

New cost cap era is fast putting an end to the need for 2nd/3rd tier teams to take good old fashioned pay drivers. Not certain it's all together a good thing as the replacement 'Team Driver Academies' are throwing up problems over contracts and intra team payments/influence.   
 

[Monty]

Any driver that can complete F1 races is ‘good’ but ‘good’ isn’t enough in F1. I never believed Latifi was good enough. His was a purchased seat but he never improved enough to justify his position. There are a number of brilliant drivers in other series that would be better than Latifi but were never given the chance. DeVries really proved this.

[cosworth151]

I think Latifi was also given a bit of slack on the belief that the Williams car was a large part of the problem and that if only he had a shot at a better car.....

Nyck De Vries put an end to that. I think that was the last straw for Latifi.

As Monty said, it takes much more than a "good" driver to survive in F1. I think Nick L could do quite well in GT cars or maybe NASCAR. He might even pull a Grojean and find a home in IndyCar.

[Andy B]

Interesting that the Superlicence was designed to put a stop to the ability to buy an F1 seat.

[Jericoke]

Interesting that the Superlicence was designed to put a stop to the ability to buy an F1 seat.

Putting on my tinfoil hat... maybe the idea was to pump money into lower series, so well backed drivers had to spend a few years buying into
 lower series before buying directly into F1?

F1 might be the FIA's 'crown jewel', but if you can get more (rich) people interested in F2 and F3, that's more money for the FIA.

[rmassart]

If only he'd have been given the boot about 10 months ago, Lewis would still be champion, even if not for much longer.

Latifi was always out of his depth at the level F1 expects you to be. Consistently outperformed by George Russell...

[Alianora La Canta]

I have to disagree Ali he has never performed well in F1 and I am surprised he has lasted so long.

"Found his level" means we know the maximum extent of his capabilities. He's not going to do better if he gets a better car, and we've found out all we are going to know about Nicholas Latifi's F1 capabilities. He was competent, he tried very hard to improve, but he improved as much as I think he's going to and this is 2022, and not the 1990s