Jost Capito says Nyck de Vries has "nothing else to do" to stake his claim to a seat with Williams for 2023 after his remarkable race at Monza last weekend.
The Williams Racing boss suggested "there might be solutions" for the Dutchman to join the British outfit full time next season.
De Vries was drafted in on short notice last Saturday to replace Alex Albon who suffered from appendicitis.
The 27-year-old Mercedes reserve driver promptly made the Q2 cut, qualifying P13 and outpacing Williams teammate Nichola Latifi before finishing a remarkable ninth on his F1 debut on Sunday.
Williams has yet to nominate the driver that will partner Albon at the team next season, but there's now a strong case to be made that de Vries should fill that seat.
Queried on that prospect, Capito admitted that "there is nothing else" de Vries needs to do to convince Williams that he is the man for the job.
"He did an absolutely outstanding job and I rate him extremely high," said Capito, quoted by Motorsport.com. "That's why my expectations are extremely high and he overfulfilled these.
"It's so difficult to get in that car to race for two hours and do the qualifying and not doing any mistake and not driving on its own.
"He had to defend, he had attack. He had to get lapped and not doing a mistake, then he had to do the pitstop is just so complicated, and it's outstanding job."
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But Capito says he has yet to get a clear picture of de Vries' current contractual situation before making a call on the Mercedes reserve driver's possible F1 future with Williams.
The Dutchman is a reserve driver for Toyota in the WEC and could be offered a full-time seat with the Japanese squad for 2023, while he has also been linked to the new Maserati Formula E team.
"I don't know, you have to ask him what his contractual situations are," concluded Capito.
"You've just seen how messy it can be, and we are not known for being messy.
"I'm not doing hypothetical things, so I'm only interested in facts. If the facts are there, then there might be solutions..."
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