The Brit forging his own path to F1

"So you're still working with Red Bull this year..." Alex Lynn shakes his head. "No connection at all?" "No."

That question hadn't exactly been planned as a curveball. Or even a question. After all, Lynn had just won the GP3 title (by a commanding margin) as a Red Bull junior and now been announced as a DAMS GP2 driver alongside 2014 Red Bull stablemate Pierre Gasly.

This was at AUTOSPORT International back in January. Lynn had hinted it was worth holding back a few weeks after our conversation before writing this feature, as there was something else - something big - on the horizon. Now he was doing an impeccably professional job of navigating the tightrope of what he could and couldn't say about 2015: "There are some other things going along. I want to get myself in the position where if I perform, I get the opportunity."

Earlier that week, Lynn had received a rather rewarding phone call from Claire Williams. It wasn't completely out of the blue, but it did come six anxious weeks after he'd completed an evaluation test in the Williams simulator, and during that time he'd reached a "completely amicable" agreement to sever his ties with Red Bull.

Lynn won GP3 with Red Bull, but it wasn't enough © LAT

All Red Bull young guns live with the prospect of being ditched if they fail to fulfil expectations. But in pouncing on Max Verstappen and accelerating him into Formula 1 last summer, Red Bull showed a new flavour of ruthlessness. 'You can be doing all we've asked of you,' the move said, 'but that still might not be enough if we see something exceptional elsewhere'.

No wonder Lynn and Carlos Sainz Jr - then leading and eventually champions of GP3 and Formula Renault 3.5 respectively - were unsettled.

Sainz getting a second chance closed another door for Lynn. Red Bull wasn't kicking him out, but the best it could offer was a sideways move. Riding momentum from his 2013 Macau Grand Prix victory and that GP3 title, Lynn didn't think he could afford to dawdle.

"The Red Bull opportunity was still open, but Helmut Marko made it quite obvious to me that in the next two years I hadn't really got the chance to get in a Formula 1 car. At which point I said, 'OK, that's the decision that's been taken, do you mind if I go and look elsewhere?'"

What was then a bold gamble now looks like a masterstroke. Lynn begins 2015 racing for the squad that ran three of the past four GP2 champions, and as a development driver for a legendary F1 team with a reputation for promoting talent and where race-seat vacancies in the near future aren't unthinkable, given factory rivals' interest in Valtteri Bottas, and Felipe Massa now being in his 13th season on the grid. But when he said farewell to Red Bull, neither of those deals existed. December was not a relaxing month.

The 21-year-old had set his heart on DAMS for GP2, but tested with ART and Carlin because "at that time DAMS were already full. But then I think the deal fell through with Esteban Ocon. I got first dibs on it. They called just before Christmas and said, 'Do you want to take it?' and I said, 'Yes, I'd jump through hoops to get in that car'."

Stevens was happy to start his F1 career at the back, but Lynn has different ideas ©LAT

Lynn was touring the NEC stages with Britain's most recent F1 debutant Will Stevens. While at similar points in their careers, their attitudes to the next step were very different.

For Stevens, just getting on the grid - even in the surreal scenario of a Finbarr O'Connell-run phoenix-like Caterham team - was worth it to prove to the paddock he could hold his own in a grand prix.

That wasn't a prospect Lynn fancied when it was put to him back in November: "Not dissing anyone, but I'm looking at a sustainable career and I'm looking to become a world champion one day. I want to try to get myself in the door somewhere I'm really in the frame. I'm looking for someone that believes that I could lead a team one day."

Holding out for Williams makes Lynn well-placed to be the next Brit to make an impact in F1. While GP2 champion Jolyon Palmer has a Lotus reserve deal, memories of Davide Valsecchi watching from the bench as Heikki Kovalainen failed to score in the absent Kimi Raikkonen's car are too fresh.

Still, it was Lotus that gave Lynn a chance to make his F1 test debut last November. He calls it "a random one-off" that had no prospect of leading anywhere, though the team's engineering chief Alan Permane was impressed, and Lynn admits actually getting on track in an F1 car was psychologically valuable for him at an uncertain time.

"It was so out of the blue, I was a little bit nervous. I was like, 'Jesus, I haven't really prepared for this'. But actually I think it did a good job for my career. Until you actually drive a Formula 1 car, there's always that little bit of doubt in not only your mind, but in other people's too, about whether you can do it. I proved it to Lotus and I proved it to myself."

Williams doesn't tend to do 'random' or 'one-off' when a young driver comes onto its radar. A GP3 title and a Williams development position was the springboard for Bottas's F1 career, and the Finn's trajectory is the benchmark for Lynn.

But Bottas is just the latest man launched onto the grid from a Williams test role - Damon Hill, David Coulthard, Juan Pablo Montoya (via a US diversion), Nico Rosberg, Kazuki Nakajima and Nico Hulkenberg all got their starts in the same way.

A man who describes his character as "fairly all or nothing - either we're going to do this properly and in the right way, or I'm not really that interested" is a good match for Williams. Like his predecessors, Lynn will get an in-depth taste of every aspect of the Williams factory and the team's processes.

The list of Williams junior rejects is shorter than Red Bull's and has more asterisks of mitigation on it, but Lynn wants to make sure he's under the same heading as Rosberg, Hulkenberg and Bottas, not Jean-Christophe Boullion and Bruno Junqueira.

"The whole assessment process was very serious. From that moment, you wake up. Ever since I got the role, it's been very full-on. They've been great with me, really pushing me hard and immersing me in the team.

Lotus test in Abu Dhabi gave Lynn his first laps in an F1 car © LAT

"There's such a broad way you can develop talent, and I think Williams have really nailed it with how they do it. They've proved it with Nico and Valtteri. I hope I don't balls it up."

He's not expecting any Friday practice running - the only certainty of time in the car is the post-Spanish Grand Prix test. Otherwise it's intensive simulator and factory work.

That's "fair enough", reckons Lynn, who wants to be "100 per cent on it" for GP2 and not hopping back into his DAMS Dallara with a head full of F1 Williams on a Friday, especially given that he reckons 2015 will be "a golden year" for GP2 as he takes on McLaren-backed 2014 rookie sensation Stoffel Vandoorne, Gasly and Ferrari's coming man Raffaele Marciello.

It's a tough field to face - Vandoorne has rewritten expectations for a GP2 newcomer and Gasly was dominant in post-season testing. The men Lynn will be measuring himself against all have either a year of GP2 or a season in the more comparable FR3.5 car.

He went into GP3 thinking tactically, with a benchmark points-per-weekend goal in mind that he (rightly) reckoned would seal a title, but GP2 is "a different game. These boys are all potential grand prix superstars and you've got to hit it hard and you've got to win and you've got to be fast."

Many racing drivers talk of wanting to be F1 world champion, but most express it in platitudes, as if titles fall into your arms if you stand under the right tree. There's nothing lightweight about Lynn's approach, although he's engaging and articulate enough to give you a window into his internal intensity, which will serve him well with media and fans should he reach F1.

The GP2 and F1 success he aspires to isn't taken for granted. He knows the possibilities open to him; he believes he's capable of earning them, but he doesn't underestimate what that requires of him.

Lynn hasn't tried the DAMS GP2 car yet, but did run with Carlin and ART last year © LAT

"I know if I don't perform in GP2, I won't be racing a Formula 1 car for anyone - that's obvious. I'm a big believer in extraordinary people getting extraordinary results.

"If you want to mark yourself out as being an extraordinary person, you've got to produce something special.

"That's what I intend to try to do: win the GP2 championship this year or come very close to it. If it doesn't work out, then I haven't done enough.

"Ideally I'd like to win GP2 and then progress. Whether things pan out that way... But I believe that I will get the chance - if I perform - to race for the Williams team."

INSPIRED BY WILLIAMS'S HERITAGE

It will be 18 years this season since Williams last won a Formula 1 title, and 12 since it last looked realistically capable of doing so. Does that mean the legendary status it has in the hearts of F1 fans of a certain generation is waning for those who can't remember its glory days first-hand - such as its 21-year-old new development driver?

Not at all, says Alex Lynn, especially so once you've had the privilege of meeting Sir Frank Williams himself.

"That was when I realised how much this team means to him, how much winning races means to him. Sometimes it takes other people to motivate you, and I'll always remember walking out of his office thinking, 'I really want to do this' - not just for myself, but for the whole team.

"There's something really cool and romantic about racing and Williams itself. It's had such an amazing history and I think it's going to have an amazing future."

Lynn's own formative Williams memories revolve around its two British world champions, but he wants to create his own Williams legend.

"My dad brought me up watching F1, so it's the whole Damon Hill and Nigel Mansell thing. There's a great determination in me to make that happen again. What an amazing story it would be.

"I want to win world championships, and ideally I'd like to win them with Williams and have Great British dominance back. That's what I remember of Williams - Damon and Nigel - and that's where it's at for me."