Franco: “It’s an unbelievable opportunity”

It’s approaching the first anniversary of me being a part of the Williams Driver Academy, and honestly, it’s been amazing.

It has been a dream since I was a kid to be part of a Formula 1 team. I have had so much support from Williams, and the whole team has been so welcoming in my first year. I have enjoyed every second of it.

They have helped me develop my race pace, plus I have been able to learn and understand how an F1 team works. It has been amazing, and I am incredibly grateful to be part of this team.

I have had a few months to reflect on my 2023 Formula 3 season, it was a good year overall. Of course, at the beginning of the year, we started strong, and then we slipped away and lost a few points.

In Melbourne, I won the race but was disqualified for a very minor issue with the car – we’re talking millimetres that cost us many points. Then, at the last race, I was not at my optimum as I had a collarbone injury. I was struggling to be at 100%, but that was my bad!

The season was a bit up and down, but to finish fourth after all of that was a good result. I was hoping to have been fighting for the title, but it pretty quickly became a fight for second.

I had a great season with Williams Racing and with MP Motorsport, they really are my motorsport family. I have been racing with them for so many years, they have been great with me, and they are great people to work with.

I’m now stepping up into Formula 2 with them, so I need to go into a lot of detail and prepare well for this new challenge. I’ve never had any experience in this category of cars, and I’ll be going straight into a race weekend – I’ll only get around five or six push laps before we’re into Qualifying!

Everything will be new, so it will be a valuable experience to get a race under my belt before my full-debut season in ‘24. To go through all the procedures, gain an understanding of what is required and what I can improve is going to be great.

Obviously, that won’t be my only outing in Abu Dhabi this month as I’m also getting ready for the post-season Formula 1 Young Driver Test. I honestly struggle to put into words what this means.

It’s been a dream for so many years to one day jump into an F1 car. Ever since I was racing go-karts, it was my goal and my target to be able to even do a few laps, and now to be able to say I’m testing the car in Abu Dhabi is mega.

I am so grateful to the team, it’s an unbelievable opportunity and I’m getting ready for it. I know it’s going to be a challenge, but it’s so, so cool! In one year, I would have driven in three different championship cars – Formula 3, 2 and 1 – not many can say they’ve done that in such a short space of time, so it’s a privilege.

I am so grateful for the support from my home country and to everyone who has been backing me over these past few years. This opportunity also belongs to them, they also achieved this.

The support I have been shown means everything. It’s rare to see the amount of support I have for the level I am racing at. I’m so proud to be representing my home country, and when I see the fans so happy and celebrating each opportunity I get, it’s very cool to see.

It helps me to keep motivated and keep pushing forward, to get better results and give them the happiness back that they have shown me. It’s not just been a case of supporting me through messages and social posts, but they have taken it upon themselves to help me get sponsors throughout my career so I can continue doing what I love.

It’s incredible what a country can do and what the fans can do, it makes me very proud to be Argentinian and I’m already looking forward to bringing them a lot of happy moments in Formula 2.

For 2024, it’s difficult to say what my goals are yet. I haven’t worked with the F2 team much yet, so from Interlagos I head back to Europe to work flat-out and get myself prepared. I’m not going to put any expectations on it, of course, I’m going to do my best and do everything I can to have the best year possible, but I will take it race by race, weekend by weekend and see how it goes.

There will be a lot to learn, it will be a completely new car, but I think we can have a very good year together. As I said earlier, MP has been my family in racing and I’m super happy to be working with them in this next step in my career. It’s so important to have that confidence in each other.

See you on track soon,