Nicholas Latifi finally claimed his first points of the season at last weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix, with the Canadian once again proving to be quite the wet racer.
The outgoing Williams driver did, of course, make it to Q3 astonishingly at the British Grand Prix, which was wet.
His performance at Suzuka proves that Latifi is actually very talented when the elements are against the drivers, with his best drives having come in the wet.
Latifi decided to pit for Intermediates following the red flag restart, something which saw the Williams driver make up multiple seconds on other drivers whilst they continued to circulate on the considerably slower full Wets.
READ: ‘Not too concerned’: Mattia Binotto admits Ferrari confusion
The Canadian must have been laughing inside his helmet as he flew past half the grid whilst they pitted for Intermediates, with the 27-year-old having risen into the points.
Latifi went on to claim P9, meaning he has the same number of points as Nyck de Vries, who replaced Alex Albon at the Italian Grand Prix.
The result was a “nice morale booster” for the driver; however, he knows that doing something similar earlier in the year wouldn’t have saved his Formula 1 career.
“It’s a points finish so it’s a positive, a nice morale booster,” he said
“But if a decision hadn’t already been made up to this point about my future, I don’t think a race like this would have changed much because it was always going to be about consistency across the year, not one good result here and there.”
Latifi went on to give his opinion on the shocking incident which unravelled on the second lap, as the field drove past a recovery vehicle which had been allowed onto the circuit to collect Carlos Sainz’s crashed Ferrari.
Pierre Gasly came worryingly close to actually hitting the poorly lit vehicle, something Latifi labelled as “unacceptable”.
“From my perspective, it was completely unacceptable that it was on the track,” he said.
READ: Helmut Marko explains why Max Verstappen won’t break Lewis Hamilton’s records
“We passed it under the Safety Car, but even under the Safety Car you can barely see it until you’re 10 feet away.
“Even at that speed, you’re on the limit with the grip because the tyres… they’re not good rain tyres, they’re not made to go slow, these cars aren’t made to go slow
“It’s one thing if the recovery vehicle was off the track recovering the car, that’s already still bad in those conditions. But this was on the track and unacceptable.”