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Stevens hints future lays in WEC, not F1
Will Stevens has suggested he is unlikely to make a Formula 1 return for Manor this season, and that his focus for the latter half of the year will be returning to the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Filip Cleeren
Edited: Aug 8, 2016, 12:02 PM
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With Rio Haryanto’s sponsorship budget having run out after the first half of the F1 season, rumours about the second Manor seat are in full swing.
Along with Alexander Rossi, Stoffel Vandoorne and Esteban Ocon, the name of Will Stevens has been mentioned as a possible replacement for the Indonesian driver for the remainder of the season.
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Stevens, who contested last season with the Banbury outfit, is now trying his hand at sportscar racing in the Blancpain GT Series and WEC.
Speaking to Motorsport.com at the Spa 24 Hours, where Stevens shared a WRT Audi R8 with Belgians Dries Vanthoor and Frederic Vervisch, the 25-year-old Briton remains coy about his future.
"I don’t know, honestly,” said Stevens, "F1 is obviously what every driver dreams of doing. I’ve done it, obviously I loved it and I would love to do it in a competitive car. Would I go back? I don’t know.
"Everyone’s talking about Manor and I don’t know what the situation there is. If there is an opportunity, for sure I’d have to think about it.
"At the moment I have a contract to finish [Blancpain] and with WEC it’s unknown. We’ll wait and see."
Long-term choice
Having spent all of last year at the back of the F1 grid, Stevens realises there might be better opportunities out there if he is to establish a long-term career in motor racing.
"I need to make the right decision for the future. What’s good for a few months may not be good for the future,” Stevens admitted.
"Whatever gives me the most stability and the best longevity in my career is what I’m trying to achieve. I’d never turn my back on F1 but on the same token in WEC and GTs, career-wise, it’s a good thing to be doing.
I want to earn a career in motorsport. F1 is always hard and very political. Here it’s less so. If you do a good job, you can get recognised and do a good, stable job with a manufacturer and that’s what I want to achieve."
Stevens has taken well to sports car racing, dovetailing his Blancpain campaign with LMP2 stints for Manor and G-Drive in the World Endurance Championship.
"Coming out of last year the main thing I wanted to do this year was a lot of racing,” Stevens continued. "These guys [WRT] have done a good job for me.
"I’m starting to build some good relationships here. I feel good in the team and in the car, so I’m happy. I hope that I’m starting to prove that I can do a good job in this discipline."
After appearing with Manor in the first two WEC rounds of the season at Silverstone and Spa, Stevens turned up at G-Drive for the Le Mans 24 Hours but didn’t contest the following round at the Nurburgring last month.
Explaining the move, Stevens added: "I got an offer from G-Drive to go do Le Mans with them. As a team, with the line-up they had with Rene [Rast] and [Roman] Rusinov, I couldn’t have had a better package for my first Le Mans.
"I took it because I needed to do what was best for me, and that was it. We didn’t win the race but we got two penalties and a puncture which cost us a lot of time.
"Pace-wise, considering it was my first time, we were pretty happy with it. It wasn’t a critical thing for me to be at the Nurburgring. In the circumstances, I wasn’t massively pressurised to do it."
Manor WEC return possible
Stevens now heads off for the summer break while his team is working on his future, both for the rest of this season and 2017.
"I've got plenty of people working on my behalf,” Stevens said. "We’re always looking for an opportunity to see what I can do for my future.
"We’re halfway through the season, I’m not suddenly going to change what I’m doing. I’m committed to [Blancpain] for the rest of the year for sure. I’m happy with this. This is giving me the best opportunity of proving myself against good people.
"With WEC I don’t know how it’s going to pan out. We’ll see in the next few weeks what’s going on. Everyone’s got two or three weeks off now so I’m sure a few things are going to happen over there.
"Everything now happens for next year. I’d love to know what I’m doing next year within the next few months. In February this year I still didn’t know what I was doing and it was a nightmare. Luckily I ended up with a really good opportunity this year.
"We want to figure it out for the rest of this year and next year as soon as possible. We’re still talking to [WEC team] Manor so we'll see for the rest of the year."
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