A few months ago, Williams Martini Racing said that age would not be a factor in their 2018 Formula One driver lineup decision. That appears to be the case.
Before Felipe Massa, 36, announced that he would be retiring following the conclusion of the 2017 Formula One season, there was already discussion as to which driver would be driving for Williams Martini Racing as his replacement 2018 if he did end up leaving the team.
Just over one week before Massa announced that he would retire following the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday, November 26th, the Williams team made clear that age would not be a factor in determining their 2018 driver lineup.
Why is this significant?
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Lance Stroll only just turned 19 years old; he was 18 years old for almost the entire 2017 Formula One season. Because Martini, an alcoholic beverage company, sponsors the team, it was widely assumed that one of the team’s two drivers had to be above the age of 25 due to marketing purposes for Martini as a result of that fact.
Because Stroll is returning to the sport for a second season and he is not even close to being 25 years old yet, there were rumors that Williams would only sign a driver if that driver was at least 25 years old.
Here is what Paddy Lowe, the Williams team’s technical head, had to say about the topic back in October, according to Reuters.
"“What’s most important for the team is to pick a driver lineup that will give us the best performance and most exciting racing potential. There are some issues around advertising and Martini but if it came to it, I‘m sure Martini would understand the importance — if that’s what we were to choose — to have the best lineup for racing rather than for advertising. We will cross that bridge if we need to. Age is not a factor in our primary objective which is to pick the best lineup.”"
At first, the team appeared to be ready to sign 33-year-old Robert Kubica, a former Formula One driver and race winner who has not driven in the sport since the 2010 season, his fifth full season in the sport.
Williams had also considered 31-year-old Paul di Resta to replace Massa, another former Formula One driver who actually substituted for Massa in this past season’s Hungarian Grand Prix. The race was his first since the 2013 season, his third season in the sport.
It appeared as though their claim about age not being a factor was not necessarily false, but it had no way of being proven true.
Now with Kubica and di Resta out of the mix, it has pretty much been proven true, which will make things interesting with Martini moving forward. The overwhelming favorite to replace Massa is now Sergey Sirotkin. Sirotkin is only 22 years old. If the team were to sign him, they would be left without a driver who is 25 years or older.
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Will Williams Martini Racing end up signing 22-year-old Sergey Sirotkin even though that would leave them with no drivers who are 25 years old or older, thus potentially creating a conflict with Martini? That is the way it looks right now, so it will be interesting to see how things unfold in the coming weeks.