Nicholas Latifi only has two races left with Williams after the team decided to part ways with the Canadian at the end of the season, putting an end to their three year relationship.
The team will replace Latifi with Logan Sargeant should the F2 driver secure the required amount of Super Licence points via his finishing position in the championship.
Williams team principal Jost Capito has said that he believes the backlash from last year’s incident in Abu Dhabi has affected the Canadian’s performance this year, once again calling out the disgraceful abuse that Latifi received on social media.
Latifi crashed out of the final race of last season in the closing stages, which caused the safety car, under which the Michael Masi controversy occurred, allowing some cars to unlap themselves and eventually leading to Max Verstappen overtaking Lewis Hamilton to win his first world championship.
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The 27-year-old received abuse on social media, with fans of Hamilton accusing the Canadian of costing the Brit his record breaking eighth title by crashing out, but Latifi has now revealed that Hamilton messaged him in the off season to offer consolation despite having his own healing to do.
“Lewis did send me a message to reach out to me. He was kind of detaching from the whole world of social media and whatnot himself,” he said.
“He obviously had his own emotions to kind of deal with, what he was fighting with. But he did send me a very nice message, fully in support.
“I even had messages from some other top Mercedes team members that reached out, along with countless visible ones from different team accounts, different drivers and whatnot.”
This shows that the Lewis Hamilton the fans see on their screens is genuine and not just a face for the cameras, as it would have been very easy for the Brit to hold some sort of grudge against Latifi for the incident.
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The Williams driver removed himself from all social media following the abuse before slowly making a comeback earlier this year.
It is unclear so far what Latifi plans to do next season, with the Canadian saying that he has explored IndyCar as a potential option, but nothing is decided yet.
Sadly Latifi has never quite managed to step out of the shadow of his Williams teammates, George Russell and Alex Albon, which left the team no choice but to explore a different option for their 2023 driver line up.