Racing Point Force India has confirmed that Lance Stroll underwent a seat-fitting at the team's Silverstone factory earlier this week.
Following the pink squad's take-over by a consortium of investors led by the young Canadian's father, Lawrence Stroll, it's only a matter of time before the 19-year-old is confirmed as a Force India driver for 2019.
However, according to Force India's technical director Andy Green, Stroll's seat-fitting this week was simply part of the team's preliminary work for next season, just in case.
"What we wanted to do was make sure that there was nothing that we needed to change on next year’s car, subtly for him," Green explained.
"And there were a few things we need to change, which we caught just in time."
The prospect of Stroll moving from Williams to his father's team in the coming weeks remains a possibility, albeit a complicated one given a contractual and legal situation involving several teams and drivers.
Furthermore, with Force India having to start from scratch in the Constructors' standings, its interests for the remainder of the season would perhaps be better served by keeping its current line-up intact.
"As we sit here today, we’re keeping the same two drivers probably for the rest of the year, but you never know what tomorrow brings," said team boss Otmar Szafnauer.
"I would imagine that Lance has a contract with Williams, and I imagine that the CRB [Contract Recognition Board] has that contract.
"So the first step is to be released, and that assumes that we want him to be released as well. There’s a lot of stuff. That I’m not in control of, the release.
“We’ve done the seat fitting, we’re in control of that. The rest of the stuff is legal stuff, but if two people agree, you can do it."
Williams deputy team principal Claire Williams agreed that any potential driver swap would not be a straight-forward affair.
"I don't think it's going to happen quickly," she told Sky F1.
"There are quite a lot of hoops that we've all still got to jump through around the [Force India] sale in particular.
"Once that's happened I think then things will start moving. I don't think we'll see a change before Singapore certainly.
"I don't know, maybe around Russia, Austin, something like that. I think we just have to wait and see. It's a real moving target at the moment."
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