Nicholas Latifi has denied reports that he has already signed a contract to race in IndyCar next year.
The Canadian’s impending departure from the Williams Formula 1 team was confirmed in September, and IndyCar would be an obvious possible destination.
However, he says any suggestion that he already has a deal in place to race in the North American category is untrue at this point in time, nor is his heart necessarily set on such a move.
“Honestly, I’ve still not committed to anything, I haven’t signed anything, so I’m still not any further along in, say, having concrete news to share,” said Latifi while in the United States for F1 this weekend.
“I understand a few articles over the past days have [reported that] I’ve already signed up a contract and decided to race in IndyCar, which I found a little bit funny.
“I’ve spoken to a few different teams across different categories, and I’m still not setting myself, ‘Okay, it’s this or nothing’ type thing.
“It’s still a lot of things up in the air.”
As yet, Williams has not confirmed a replacement for the 27-year-old, having thus far only announced the renewal of Alex Albon on a multi-year contract.
News of the parting of ways from Latifi was made official following the Italian Grand Prix, where Nyck de Vries scored points on debut while filling in for the appendicitis-afflicted Albon.
De Vries has since been signed to drive for Scuderia AlphaTauri but, speaking earlier in recent weeks, Latifi said he knew the writing was on the wall before being comprehensively outperformed by his temporary team-mate at Monza.
“I think it didn’t matter who was in the other car,” he remarked.
“I think, regardless, the results weren’t there from my side, so it was never going to be one race that was going to make the difference.
“To be honest, I think even if I score points in Monza, I don’t believe it would have made a difference because, again, one good race…”
Worth noting also is that, from months prior, Oscar Piastri had been linked to a loan deal with Williams before ultimately landing at McLaren.
“In the grand scheme of things, one or two points, it’s not going to change the championship,” added Latifi.
“It’s about the performance over the whole year.
“Monza was obviously not a good race, so it doesn’t help, but it was a bunch of them taken in mind.”
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