Roy Nissany, Williams, Yas Marina

Nissany hoping to return to F2 seat and 2020 Williams role after injury

2019 F1 season

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Williams test driver Roy Nissany is hoping for a busier 2020 season after sitting out this year due to injury.

Speaking after driving two half-days in the FW42 at Yas Marina, Nissany admitted his call-up by the team had come as a surprise.

“It was an opportunity which came earlier this year after an injury that I had during 2019,” he said. “[That] was the reason I didn’t race a Formula 2.” Nissany raced for Campos in 2018.

“My management could get us the right support and got the connection to Williams, [which] allowed me this huge opportunity, and it was a great experience. I hope it will open my door into the Formula 1 world.”

Nissany said his management team is “working hard” on a possible role with Williams next year. However he is also looking to return to racing. “The aim is also to race in Formula 2. So I will do three days of testing as well.” However Nissany is not due to take part in the first day of F2 testing at Yas Marina tomorrow.

He said he was able to quickly get up to speed on his first test in an F1 car.

“It took me yesterday something like three, four to five laps to be confident, to start pushing, to have the right late braking points, flat corners in the right speed,” said Nissany.

“Surprisingly, it was quite early, very early. I was happy with that. And we are already there, already in the right speed, in the right pace.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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12 comments on “Nissany hoping to return to F2 seat and 2020 Williams role after injury”

  1. I wonder what the motivation is for people like him… if he was good enough to race at a high level he would almost certainly have demonstrated some kind of ability by the age of 25. But there’s absolutely no sign of it.

    Is it just a desire to hang around the F1 paddock and have a reason to travel round the world? That’d be quite an expensive hobby, but I really can’t think of another reason for him to bother with F2 and buying himself a few tests in F1…

  2. Williams have a knack of adding injury to insult…

  3. Even in testing, 7 seconds off the pace won’t get you many phone calls.

    1. Well you don’t know which Programms they were running, fuel los, tyres, we won’t know till fp1 in Melb— sorry, old preseason reflex, hard to turn off

      1. @mrboerns Till QLF in Melbourne to be more precise.

        1. Melbourne is pretty atypical though so lets Reserve judgement until after the flyaways

      2. Tbh I think there is no valid program if your 7 seconds slower even in today’s Williams.

        1. ..you are…

        2. I’m with you, mate. This is early nineties privateer level gap.

  4. If you are seven seconds behind the leaders in testing, I’m guessing you should bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the team to justify hiring you (i.e. money makes the car go faster, so Williams should become Mercedes). Then again, if one driver qualifies on pole and the other fails to qualify, I’m not sure how sustainable that situation would be.

  5. Williams has the unenviable talent of spotting also-rans. There’s certainly money involved here.

  6. The talent runs in the family. I actually feel embarassed that this is what Williams came to. Shame.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofWSBHbgUlg

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