Williams explains O'Sullivan, Browning F2 shuffle

Williams shuffled its junior pack ahead of the Azerbaijan weekend earlier this month

Williams sporting director Sven Smeets has hinted funding had not been solely behind Zak O’Sullivan’s ART departure in Formula 2, after he was replaced by fellow Williams junior Luke Browning.

O’Sullivan announced following the Monza event that he would not be completing his rookie campaign, citing funding issues as the reason to be stepping away.

Replacing him at ART was Browning, who finished third in F3 this term and had been in the championship mix into the final race.

Speaking exclusively to Autosport, Smeets hinted that funding had not been solely to blame for two-time race winner O’Sullivan’s sudden ART departure.

“Between Zak and ART, that's a personal issue,” he said. “We have nothing to do with that.

“I can confirm, though, that Zak is still in the Academy, so Zak has not left the Academy.

“We now have to see, in the next few months, what we will do together. The ball will also be in the court of Zak’s management a bit. For the rest, I can't really elaborate on that and it's more of a question to them, what happened with ART.”

Pressed on whether Williams could have provided more assistance to fill O’Sullivan’s budget shortfall, Smeets added: “That's always a difficult question. There are agreements in place, and of course, I cannot elaborate on that.

“Between them and ART something happened, and that was the conclusion ART drew from that. They eventually said: we cannot continue with each other.

“But, as I said, Zak is still in the Williams family. We will continue with each other and until the end of the year, he is with us.”

Browning set for Hitech 2025 F2 seat

O’Sullivan’s exit came at the perfect moment for Browning, who joined fellow F3 drivers Gabriele Mini and Christian Mansell in making his F2 debut on the Baku streets, a chance that came thanks to his Williams links.

“I think ART was in contact with several people,” said Smeets. “But they said: ‘look, this year the idea was to do this with Williams as well’, in part. So they then gave the opportunity to Luke.”

The move to ART resulted in Browning switching away from Hitech, the team with which the Briton has raced for during the past three years.

As per Smeets, however, this union will be re-established in 2025, when Browning will make the full-time step up to F2 with Hitech.

“For him, of course, it's great to prepare for next year because he's going to stay with Hitech for F2,” said Smeets.

“There are three circuits coming up he doesn't know from F3. I said to him: ‘The more kilometres you can do, the better,’ because this is the build-up towards next year.”

While this has not been confirmed by either the team or driver, Autosport understands Hitech intends to announce its line-up following the season's end in December.