Introduction
“The reality of motorsport is that it is an expensive sport… To race requires funding, whether that's from family backing, personal sponsors, corporate sponsors or what have you, but the money always comes from somewhere."
"It's a perspective that will always be in the background for someone with my background, let's say.”
Last time, we looked at one of the most famous drivers at the moment, or arguably the most famous one. Let’s now look at the opposite side, a driver who is a lot less “in the spotlight”, but still has a pretty impressive career so far.
Nowadays, Formula One drivers seem to be making their debut in some kind of motorsport at a very young age - Max Verstappen was seven and Lewis Hamilton six when they started competing. Nicholas Latifi, however, joined the game a bit later. He was born on 29 June 1995 to an Iranian-Canadian businessman, Michael Latifi, and his wife Maria Helena Russo. Although his father has a stake in the McLaren group, the family doesn’t have a background in motorsport.
Learning a Second Language
“It was like learning a second language, much more theory-based and it all came so much slower.”
At the age of 12, Nicholas tried an arrive-and-drive kart in Montreal, Canada, and his interest in karting was sparked. He wasn't immediately all head over heels like we saw with Verstappen and Hamilton, who knew from a very young age that they wanted to compete and were already racing at the age of 12. When finding a karting track closer to their home in Toronto, Nicholas started to attend regularly and it was the track’s owner - former IMSA racer David Tennyson - that saw a flicker of talent in the young boy.
In contrast to most of the drivers, Nicholas saw karting only as a hobby, and it was the people close to him who had to convince him to start racing. Tennyson had asked him several times, but the young driver couldn’t be bothered. Only when his parents pushed him somewhat, did he decide to give it a chance. “My parents were like, 'If you don't like it, you don't have to continue, so you might as well just try one race.' So I tried one race and I was hooked…” he explains in an interview for the Formula One website. From there on, the love and passion for the sport only grew.
Where racing is a second nature for most of the drivers, as they could probably drive a kart before they could properly walk, Latifi had to learn everything from scratch and was literally taught all the ins and outs of karting on a whiteboard. “It was like learning a second language,” he explained. “Much more theory-based and it all came so much slower.”
He soon started to compete in races in Europe, so he could learn and develop his racing skills even more there. The competition in Europe is much more dense than in America and there is so much to learn, that the decision to race there was easily made. He remained active in the Canadian and American kart classes, and finished as runner-up in the Rotax Junior class of the 2010 Canadian National Karting Championship.
Full Dedication
In 2012, he started his fourth year of serious competition, but first year of single-seaters. He started in the Italian Formula 3, racing for the BVM team, before focusing fully on racing - with some reluctance. “I was just starting to get the results [in karting], just starting to win races, win championships, and I didn't want to give it up. I was having so much fun, and I was just starting to enjoy it even more than I already was, so I didn't want to leave it.” He finished that season in 7th place, with one win and three further podium finishes.
To make up for the lost time, he then pretty much raced everything he could get his hands on. In 2013, he started competing in the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand and finished ninth in the standings. In addition, Latifi participated on behalf of Carlin's team in the European Formula 3 Championship, where he eventually finished in fifteenth place. Meanwhile, he was active in the British Formula 3 International Series, where he was more successful. Latifi achieved two pole positions in this class and was allowed to climb the podium once, which allowed him to finish the season in a solid fifth place. At the Masters of Formula 3 race at Zandvoort, Latifi qualified in eighth place and eventually finished seventh.
In 2014, Latifi drove in the European Formula 3 Championship, where he competed with Esteban Ocon for Prema Racing, finishing in tenth place. He raced in the Macau Grand Prix, the Florida Winter Series (taking four wins to Max Verstappen’s two, incidentally), the Porsche Carrera Cup GB, made his debut in Formula Renault 3.5, as a substitute for Tech 1 Racing, and made his first appearance in GP2 - when he came into action as a substitute for Hilmer Motorsport during the final race weekend in Abu Dhabi. He returned to GP2 in 2015 when he spent four race weekends with the MP Motorsport team. His best result was eleventh in Bahrain.
In 2016, Latifi finally got a permanent place on the Formula 2 grid. He did this with DAMS, the team he eventually spent the rest of his GP2/F2 career with. At the first race weekend, Latifi immediately came out strong. He finished second in the first race of the weekend and finished seventh in the sprint race that followed. Unfortunately, the rest of the season was less successful for the Canadian. For the rest of the season, he managed to finish within the points only twice.
In 2017, GP2 was officially renamed Formula 2 and Latifi had a successful year there. He won the sprint race in Baku and took to the podium a total of nine times. He ended the season in fifth place in the standings.
In 2018, however, the competition was stronger than ever. His team mate that year was future F1-driver Alexander Albon. In Baku, Latifi took his first podium of that season with a 3rd place in the sprint race. His second victory of his Formula 2 career was achieved at Spa-Francorchamps by winning the sprint race from reverse-grid pole and setting the fastest lap. Latifi stepped again on the podium when taking 2nd place at the feature race in Sochi, and ended the season in 9th place.
In 2019, he started his fourth consecutive season at DAMS. Latifi and Nyck de Vries, his direct competitor, were very evenly matched throughout the whole season. Latifi started the season strong by taking three victories in the first five races: winning feature races in Bahrain and Barcelona and the sprint race in Baku.
After the first three rounds, Latifi led the championship 30 points clear of 3rd-placed de Vries. However, a poor showing at the fourth round in Monaco, during which Latifi finished the races in 12th and 10th, saw de Vries close the gap to just one point. Latifi would not finish on the podium again until the seventh round at Silverstone, in which he finished the feature race 2nd. By this point, de Vries had extended his championship lead to 27 points. Latifi scored his final victory of the season at the feature race of the next round in Hungary, before failing to score at Monza, and then taking two 2nd-place finishes at Sochi and Yas Marina.
In the end it was De Vries who won this battle. The Dutchman took the championship on the penultimate race weekend of the season, with a lead of 52 points over Latifi
Joining the Highest Class
"I feel that I did earn my place and I do deserve to be here.”
Since 2016, the Canadian driver had been test driver for several F1-teams: in 2016 and 2017 he was signed as a test driver for Renault, with whom he made his debut in a Formula One car. He completed 140 laps at Silverstone in the Renault-powered Lotus E20. At a post-race test in Barcelona in 2017, he drove an in-use F1-car for the first time in his career.
For the 2018-season, Nicholas was announced as test and reserve-driver for Force India. With this team, he made his debut in a Grand Prix weekend by participating in the First Practice session of his home race in Canada. Later that season, he participated four more times in FP1-sessions.
The following year, Latifi joined Williams Racing as test and reserve driver, participating in six FP1-sessions.
In November 2019, during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, it was announced that Latifi would make the switch to Formula 1 as a full time driver. This news came as a big surprise to no one, as the rumors had been circulating for some time. After all, it was common knowledge that Williams desperately needed the financial contribution of Michael Latifi, Nicholas' father. Rumours went that the sponsorship money that the Latifi-family brought along would rise to around € 36 million in 2020. After losing some big sponsors, Williams could use such an amount of money. In an interview with Greg Stuart for the F1-website, Nicholas Latifi addresses the financial elephant in the room: “It's a perspective that will always be in the background for someone with my background, let's say.”
“The reality of motorsport is that it is an expensive sport… To race requires funding, whether that's from family backing, personal sponsors, corporate sponsors or what have you, but the money always comes from somewhere."
“But I think specifically, in terms of getting into Formula 1, a few years ago they implemented the whole Super Licence points as a kind of barrier to not allow just anyone to come in – and obviously from my results in the past years I've, let's say, more than exceeded those points, and I feel that I did earn my place and I do deserve to be here.”
The Canadian driver would make his debut during the Australian GP, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the race was cancelled and his debut was postponed. On July 5, 2020 during the Grand Prix weekend in Austria - the opening race of the season- Latifi qualified last on the grid, but finished the race in 11 place, as 9 of the 20 drivers didn’t make it to the finish line that weekend.
Latifi qualified 15th for the Hungarian Grand Prix, the first and only time in 2020 that he would reach the second qualifying session. In the race, he was released into the path of Carlos Sainz Jr. after his pit stop and suffered a puncture, eventually finishing the race five laps behind the leaders.
At the Italian GP, he took advantage of a safety car period to start in ninth place when the race restarted after a red flag. He finished the race in 11th place, ahead of five other drivers. His first Formula One retirement came at the Tuscan Grand Prix where he was eliminated in a multi-car accident at the safety car restart. There was another 11th-place finish at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, finishing less than a second behind Antonio Giovinazzi in the Alfa Romeo. Two retirements came in the final four races of the season, caused by a collision with Romain Grosjean at the Turkish GP and an oil leak at the Sakhir Grand Prix. Latifi ended his debut season 21st in the drivers' championship, with both him and the Williams team failing to score points.
For the British GP and 70th Anniversary GP, reserve driver Nico Hülkenberg replaced Sergio Pérez at Racing Point after the Mexican was tested positive for the coronavirus. At the Eifel GP he replaced the other Racing Point driver, Lance Stroll, after he had sat out final practice due to feeling unwell. In these races, Hülkenberg scored 10 points, and climbed to the 15th place of the final standings of that season, pushing Latifi back to the 21st place.
The Current Battle
In the 2021-season, Latifi forms again a driver duo at Williams Racing with George Russell. Being his second year on the highest race platform, this will be the year that can make or break his career. The Canadian has to distinguish himself and, in order to secure his seat for next year, he also needs to challenge his teammate Russell - who has already put high stakes when replacing Hamilton at Mercedes during the Sakhir GP last year, and is really showing himself in the nine races we’ve had so far in this season.
With a new owner at Williams, sponsorship money alone is no guarantee; Latifi really has to show what he’s capable of right now. His highest finish this year was in 15th place, during the Monaco Grand Prix, but with still 13 races to go, there are enough opportunities to improve this result and hopefully score some points for him and his team. The Canadian is a late bloomer, and has full confidence that it will work. It will be interesting to see how the “whiteboard racer” gets on during the rest of the 2021 season.
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