It had been coming for some time. On Tuesday afternoon, Williams confirmed they would be replacing Logan Sargeant. Williams Academy Driver and F2 racer Franco Colapinto will be taking his place.
The Floridan driver crashed heavily in the wet during FP3 on Saturday, destroying his car and the new updates the team had brought to the Netherlands. He missed qualifying in the process. It was the final straw for team principal James Vowles.
Speaking on Friday in Zandvoort, a day before the crash, the British engineer turned team principal said the following about Sargeant, and he accused the media of criticism on a regular basis.
“I mean, one of the strengths that’s underrated in his regard is he has a huge mental resilience. We just spoke about it a second ago. But he takes a punishment in the media, in the world, really, almost weekend on weekend.”
Sargeant has been criticised for his mistakes. That’s part of sports coverage, whether it’s in F1, football, tennis or whatever. The 23-year-old has not had quite enough pace, and he has crashed a little bit too often. Nobody can deny that.
However, Vowles himself has not been afraid to use the media to apply and put plenty of pressure on Sargeant regarding his seat for the rest of 2024. It has been a consistent theme since the Monaco Grand Prix, whether on TV or to print media.
Why was he retained for 2024 if Vowles did not believe in him?
Sargeant was fortunate to hold on to his seat heading into 2024. His rookie season was plagued with crashes and mistakes, and he never outqualified Alex Albon in Grand Prix sessions.
The 23-year-old ultimately got another chance. However, it was clear quite early on that he was on borrowed time.
In Australia, Williams gave Alex Albon his car. The Thai crashed in FP1, damaging his chassis beyond repair for the rest of the weekend.
With no spare one available due to the tight turnaround time to get the FW46 ready for Bahrain, Sargeant was brutally benched. It showed that Sargeant never had a chance of staying at the team beyond 2024. It was clear then Vowles did not think he was good enough.
To not make the change during the summer break makes this decision seem rushed, too. Keeping a driver he no longer believed in for another round was a strange call.
There were plenty of other decent options on the market.
Fighting a losing battle
Although it quickly became clear that Sargeant was not a Max Verstappen or Lewis Hamilton level of talent, his chances of impressing this season had been hampered, parking what happened in Australia.
Sargeant did make progress in 2024, although his failure to beat Albon in any Grand Prix qualifying sessions did not necessarily show it. He closed the qualifying gap to his highly regarded teammate.
For a few races from Imola onwards, the American was on an older, heavier spec package. In Monaco, he had to run the 2023 Williams rear wing — a huge disadvantage for any driver trying to fight for their drive.
F1 did not see the best of Logan Sargeant
In 2020, the American was a teammate of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri’s at PREMA in Formula 3.
The title battle went down to the last race, with Sargeant colliding with Lirim Zendeli at Mugello that ultimately saw him lose out on the title to the Australian by 4 points. He more than held his own against Piastri, Pourchaire, Lawson and Vesti.
Despite budget issues, he went on to win a race in a Charouz the following year, an enormous achievement for anyone who covers or follows the lower formulas.
Two Feature race wins in his single Formula 2 season at Carlin, finishing P4 in the standings, showed the underlying speed he had.
It’s quite possible his promotion came a year too early. Ultimately it did not quite work out in F1.
Nonetheless, wherever he ends up from here, he will do a good job and show the strong talent he has.
A matter of respect
As Pit Debrief reported last month, Logan Sargeant and James Vowles were no longer on speaking terms.
The 23-year-old did strongly hit back at Marcus Ericsson in Belgium after the Swede first spoke about it on a podcast, but this website got the information from multiple sources.
Clear signs of cracks in their relationship had appeared, with Sargeant stating in media sessions that he wanted to continue to do the best he can for the mechanics and engineers on his side of the garage multiple times, and he admitted in his pre-Hungary media session that he was no longer recieving any feedback from James Vowles. His race engineer Gaetan Jego was fully supportive and encouraging until the very end.
While Sargeant might not have been up to F1 standard in the eyes of many, respect and open chats should be a basic thing between a team boss and driver, unless a driver really tries to damage the team from within.
It has happened before in F1 — and it will surely happen again in the future.
From a media point of view, Sargeant always gave honest answers in his media sessions in his short time in F1. That’s all you can ask for from a driver.
Huge pressure on Franco Colapinto
“To replace a driver mid-season is not a decision we have taken lightly, but we believe this gives Williams the best chance to compete for points over the remainder of the season.
“We have just brought a large upgrade to the car and need to maximise every points-scoring opportunity in a remarkably tight midfield battle.”
Those are the words of James Vowles from the press release sent out by Williams earlier today.
In reality, the chances of Franco Colapinto helping Alex Albon score points and getting far closer to him than Sargeant did is slim, at best. The Argentine driver unquestionably has speed and has generally brought the car to the chequered flag in Formula 3 and Formula 2.
However, with such little time in an F1 car, it’ll be a miracle if the 21-year-old is able to fight for points in the nine races ahead. He did take part in FP1 at Silverstone.
Although Williams brought updates to Zandvoort which would help them, they only have four points on the board this season. It’s an incredibly disappointing return following a really good 2023 campaign that saw them claim P7 in the Constructors’ Championship.
With a quality driver line-up of Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon next year, the pressure will very quickly turn to James Vowles if Williams continue to languish at the back or near it in 2026.
