{"id":848281,"date":"2026-08-06T14:40:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T14:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/848281\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T14:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T14:40:16","slug":"what-life-is-like-as-a-williams-f1-simulator-driver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/848281\/","title":{"rendered":"What life is like as a Williams F1 simulator driver"},"content":{"rendered":"

Motorsport: Let\u2019s talk about your current role at Williams<\/a>. Can you explain what impact you have on the car?<\/p>\n

Victor Martins: \u201cI can have an impact on the car, but is it direct? Not necessarily, I\u2019d say, because there are many people in the team, many departments, many things to improve, to analyse \u2013 so \u2018direct\u2019, I\u2019d say no.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, taking part in development, yes \u2013 be it mainly on the simulator, testing energy management on the upcoming track before every weekend, preparing [for] Alex\u2019s and Carlos\u2019 arrivals so that they can work on other things that may be more important to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to have a direct impact on the likes of changing a suspension, because I haven\u2019t tested the car in real life to this day, but I\u2019m going to speed up that development, I\u2019m going to try and use my experience and feedback for them to have the most accurate and best possible information.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, I try to have quite a close relationship with Carlos [Sainz] and Alex [Albon] to understand the areas we need to work on for the car \u2013 what\u2019s good and not good, what we need to improve, what to focus on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important for me to spend time here [trackside in Belgium] to then go back to the factory and give good feedback, focus on the right things for this year\u2019s FW48. But it\u2019s also good for my career to keep learning from an F1 team, keep my foot in the door as a reserve at a few races, so I\u2019m taking it positively.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Pictured <\/p>\n

Pictured in 2025, Martins attended the Belgian GP as Williams’ reserve driver<\/p>\n

Photo by: Clive Rose \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

MS: Doesn\u2019t it make things trickier to be in the simulator without having driven the actual car?<\/p>\n

VM: \u201cIt does. But we know how difficult it is to get actual mileage in the car \u2013 you don\u2019t get many FP1 opportunities, there isn\u2019t much time, these aren\u2019t easy things to get as a driver. So yes, I\u2019d like to, I want to say I push every day and hope every day for such opportunities. But I still have enough feedback and experience to look at and listen to what happens on the car out on track; reproduce it on the simulator, feel it, understand it and know where to go from there.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, if tomorrow I were to have an opportunity to drive it, it would be invaluable for the whole development of the simulator, of the car, of the correlation \u2013 for pretty much everyone actually, all departments.\u201d<\/p>\n

MS: Has the team given you a heads-up about potentially taking the wheel sometime this year?<\/p>\n

VM: \u201cFor now, there are no FP1 plans. I\u2019ve got a few TPC [Testing of Previous Cars] days, I\u2019ve already had a day at Silverstone earlier this year, but not with this car. For now, there\u2019s nothing planned for me, but again, things can change in F1; you must not rush or be desperate, you just need to do the job when needed, be professional, give the right feedback, have the right relationship, then maybe they\u2019ll give me the car sometime this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Martins <\/p>\n

Martins took part in his first (and so far only) FP1 session at last year’s Spanish GP<\/p>\n

Photo by: Clive Rose \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

MS: You\u2019re also developing a simulator specifically for the young driver academy. How is it developed compared to a regular simulator?<\/p>\n

VM: \u201cIt\u2019s actually quite similar, because in the simulator I\u2019m doing for this year\u2019s FW48, we try and replicate the car\u2019s movement, its problems, its strengths and weaknesses, and its feeling, in order to develop it.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the simulator for young driver development, we try to get as close as possible to how a car behaves on track, so it naturally is similar. But we\u2019ll try and work on models from feeder series \u2013 F3, F2 \u2013 to try and reproduce everything they might have in junior categories. But there are similarities, it\u2019s the same in the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just up to me to bring my F2\/F3 experience regarding Pirelli tyres, the car, the engines, how it went, how they behaved \u2013 just to replicate them and reproduce them.\u201d<\/p>\n

MS: In the end, is it mainly about having two simulators that can be used simultaneously?<\/p>\n

VM: \u201cYes. Simultaneously, not on the weekend, but for instance at the factory on a Tuesday, there\u2019s the simulator that works on the FW48\u2019s development year-round, and a few metres away, a simulator that runs to help young drivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s the goal, but it\u2019s not the same target at all, nor the same programme or the same project, actually. One is for F1 and the other is for the academy\u2019s young drivers, so these are two very different things, but yes, they can run at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Martins <\/p>\n

Martins has been busy working on two simulators in Grove<\/p>\n

Photo by: Clive Rose \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

MS: Alex\u00a0Albon<\/a> said many resources were being dedicated to next year\u2019s FW49. Have you been working on it?<\/p>\n

VM: \u201cYes, but we\u2019re a sizeable pool of drivers, so we have different tasks and targets. As of now, I think I\u2019m more dedicated to current development with the FW48, so that\u2019s race support. For instance, yesterday [on Thursday ahead of the Belgian GP] I was still on the simulator to prepare this weekend and have the last adjustments on energy management, so I\u2019m focusing more on this. But a few times this year I\u2019ve been able to test what\u2019s coming in the next few years and how they behave relative to this year\u2019s car, as well as the avenues to follow.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, I think many engineers are dedicated to that development, but for sure, when you\u2019re in an F1 team, you get to work with many people on many different topics, so it\u2019s quite funny how sometimes you have someone you might have never met before because you\u2019d never worked on this and that, someone you met yesterday because that engineer has just joined. There are many of us in an F1 team, so that\u2019s a lot of personnel and topics, many things to analyse, we\u2019re constantly evolving, discovering new things every day \u2013 even in my role as a simulator tester and developer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Frenchman’s role at Williams means he’s learning every day<\/p>\n

Photo by: Clive Rose \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

MS: Earlier, you said it was good for your career to be here. Does that mean you\u2019re still thinking about F1, and what does your future look like?<\/p>\n

VM: \u201cI\u2019m not shying away from the fact I still think of F1, but I think of F1 as much as WEC or Formula E for instance, because these are in my opinion the three most important and coveted categories in motorsport for the best drivers in the world, so for me it is as important to have one foot in the door in WEC, one foot in FE and one foot in F1.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo yes, this remains a goal, reaching F1 is still a dream, that\u2019s why I\u2019m keeping that foot in the door at Williams, with that role which brings me a lot as a driver on the personal side, on how to approach, learn new things on engineering, on the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor instance, the electrical side of F1 can give me nice things if I move to FE later in my career, so there are many connections between all these categories. Hypercar systems are very close to F1 systems, so I can also bring things that I learn here into Hypercar with Alpine<\/a>. So it\u2019s beneficial, whatever happens for my career, and it might give me one day \u2013 you never know \u2013 a chance to drive in F1.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Will <\/p>\n

Will Martins ever get a shot at F1?<\/p>\n

Photo by: Clive Rose \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

We want your opinion!<\/p>\n

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?<\/p>\n

Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n

– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Motorsport: Let\u2019s talk about your current role at Williams. Can you explain what impact you have on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,66444,576,109748,577,82,170726,1194,295278,1196],"class_list":["post-848281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-fia-f2","tag-formula-1","tag-formula-e","tag-formula1","tag-sports","tag-victor-martins","tag-wec","tag-what-life-is-like-as-a-williams-f1-simulator-driver","tag-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}