Williams Driver Academy

Williams Racing Driver Academy

Founded	2016;9 years ago (2016) (as Williams Young Driver Programme)
Base	Grove, Oxfordshire, England
Team principal(s)	Sven Smeets
Current drivers	FIA Formula 2 Luke Browning Victor Martins FIA Formula 3 Alessandro Giusti Italian F4 Championship Oleksandr Bondarev F1 Academy Lia Block Karting Sara Matsui Dean Hoogendoorn Lucas Palacio Will Green

The Williams Racing Driver Academy, formerly known as the Williams Young Driver Programme, is a driver development programme by Formula One team Williams. It is meant to promote talent in different racing series by helping them with funds, with the hope of finding drivers who will race for the team in the future. Notable graduates of the scheme are Lance Stroll, Nicholas Latifi, Jack Aitken, Logan Sargeant and Franco Colapinto; all of whom made their F1 debuts with Williams.

Current drivers

Driver	Began	Current series	Titles as academy member
Luke Browning [1]	2023	FIA Formula 2 Championship	FIA F3 World Cup ( 2023 )
Oleksandr Bondarev [2]	2023	F4 Middle East Championship Italian F4 Championship	WSK Champions Cup — OK ( 2024 )
Lia Block [3]	2023	Eurocup-4 Spanish Winter Championship F1 Academy	None as Williams Driver Academy member
Alessandro Giusti [4]	2024	FIA Formula 3 Championship	None as Williams Driver Academy member
Sara Matsui [4]	2024	Karting (OKJ)	None as Williams Driver Academy member
Dean Hoogendoorn [5]	2024	Karting (OKJ)	None as Williams Driver Academy member
Lucas Palacio [6]	2024	Karting	None as Williams Driver Academy member
Will Green [7]	2025	Karting	None as Williams Driver Academy member
Victor Martins [8]	2025	FIA Formula 2 Championship	None as Williams Driver Academy member

Graduates to Formula 1

This list contains the drivers that have graduated to Formula 1 with Williams support. Therefore, drivers who have had support in the past and entered Formula 1 through other means are not included.

Driver	Academy experience		F1 experience with Williams	F1 experience with other teams
	Years	Former series
Lance Stroll	2016	FIA Formula 3 European Championship (2016)	2017–2018	Racing Point (2019–2020) Aston Martin (2021–)
Nicholas Latifi	2019	FIA Formula 2 Championship (2019)	2020–2022	—
Jack Aitken [9]	2020–2021	FIA Formula 2 Championship (2020–2021) GT World Challenge Europe (2021)	2020	—
Logan Sargeant	2021–2022	FIA Formula 2 Championship (2022)	2023–2024	—
Franco Colapinto [10]	2023–2024	FIA Formula 3 Championship (2023) FIA Formula 2 Championship (2023–2024)	2024	Alpine (2025–)

Former drivers

Driver	Years	Series competed	F1 Team(s)
Oliver Rowland [11]	2018	Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup (2018) Formula E (2018–19)	None
Jamie Chadwick [12] [13]	2019–2023	W Series ( 2019 , 2021 – 2022 ) Formula Regional European Championship (2020) Indy NXT (2023)	None
Dan Ticktum [14] [15]	2020–2021	FIA Formula 2 Championship (2020–2021)	None
Roy Nissany [16]	2020–2022	FIA Formula 2 Championship (2020–2022) F3 Asian Championship (2021)	None
Oliver Gray	2022–2023	F4 British Championship (2022) FIA Formula 3 Championship (2023)	None
Zak O'Sullivan [17]	2022–2024	FIA Formula 3 Championship (2022–2023) FIA Formula 2 Championship (2024)	None

• Championship titles highlighted in bold.

See also

• Williams Racing

References

1. "Luke Browning joins the Williams Racing Driver Academy".
2. "Oleksandr Bondarev joins the Williams Racing Driver Academy".
3. "Lia Block to drive for Williams Racing in F1 Academy". Williams Racing. 14 November 2023. Retrieved 14 November 2023.
4. "Alessandro Giusti and Sara Matsui join the Williams Racing Driver Academy". Williams Racing. Retrieved 17 January 2024.
5. "Dean Hoogendoorn joins Williams Racing Driver Academy". Williams Racing. Retrieved 23 August 2024.
6. "Karting prodigy Lucas Palacio joins Williams Racing Driver Academy". Williams Racing. 18 October 2024. Retrieved 18 October 2024.
7. "British Karting Star Will Green Joins Williams Racing Driver Academy". Williams Racing. 17 December 2024. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
8. "Victor Martins Joins the Williams Racing Driver Academy". Williams Racing. 31 March 2025. Retrieved 31 March 2025.
9. Barretto, Lawrence (8 April 2020). "The Williams Driver Academy: A pursuit of talent with a commercial upside". F1 - The Official Home of Formula 1® Racing. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
10. "Franco Colapinto joins Williams Racing Driver Academy". Williams Racing. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
11. "Oliver Rowland gets Williams Formula 1 role for 2018". www.autosport.com. 23 February 2018. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
12. "Jamie Chadwick joins Williams Racing Driver Academy". Williams F1. 20 May 2019. Archived from the original on 11 June 2020. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
13. "Jamie Chadwick continues in the Williams Racing Driver Academy". www.williamsf1.com. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
14. "Dan Ticktum joins Williams Racing Driver Academy". Williams F1. 17 December 2019. Archived from the original on 10 January 2021. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
15. "Williams release development driver Dan Ticktum | Formula 1®". www.formula1.com. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
16. "Roy Nissany is confirmed as Official Test Driver". Williams F1. 15 January 2020. Archived from the original on 10 June 2020. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
17. "British teen racer Zak O'Sullivan joins Williams Driver Academy | Formula 1®". www.formula1.com. Retrieved 4 February 2022.