Photo credit: Williams Racing
Logan Sargeant hasn’t had a fantastic rookie season in Formula 1 due to his frequent accidents since the summer break. The actual question at hand, then, is whether the American driver will be able to maintain his seat with Williams for 2024.
Williams’ strong performance at the Dutch Grand Prix was spoiled somewhat by Sargeant’s crashes, which occurred throughout both in qualifying and the race, severely damaging the car in both cases. It must be said that the one in the race was due to a car issue, though.
Later, during the Singapore Grand Prix, he crashed the car into the Marina Bay Street barriers and was also responsible for another collision with Bottas during last weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix. It followed up that massive accident in qualifying when he lost the car out of the final corner.
Given that Sargeant’s place in Williams is the only one left for the upcoming season, it isn’t a perfect time for all these accidents to occur.
The three names mentioned for the American rookie’s seat right now are Mick Schumacher, Felipe Drugovich and Liam Lawson.
Vowles claims that Williams is not really interested in a replacement for their second driver, though. For the time being, Williams seems to prefer working with Sargeant alongside Alex Albon to help him succeed rather than having him replaced.
“Logan has very clear targets that he has to hit before the end of the season and we’re working with him continuously,” said Vowles in his usual post-race ‘Vowles Verdict’ segment.
“That’s the important point: we’re working with him. We want him to succeed, and we want him in the car next year. This is very much on us as well.”
“We have taken someone straight from Formula 2 without any significant testing, put a day and a half in Bahrain in this car, and then wished them well on a season that has been awfully challenging for rookie drivers, full stop,” he added.
Vowles noted that they’re paying close attention to the fact that Sargeant actually proved the kind of progress they were looking for rather than on his crash which happened in qualifying at the Japanese Grand Prix.
The Floridian had outpaced Albon by 0.111s in final practice, all that in spite of running an older spec package.
“There were some very positive signs to take out of it. First and foremost, Logan is not on the same aerodynamic specification as Alex was. We have updates that are on Alex’s car that are not on Logan’s due to the amount of attrition we’ve had this year. So often when you see a performance offset, it’s not quite what it would seem on the timing pages,” he said.
“Furthermore, to that, if we look at the case of Suzuka, he did a build-up across the weekend. As he went into FP3. he did a time that matched Alex and, as we go into qualifying until the accident, he was overlaying line online within a 10th of Alex’s performance as well, at one of the trickiest circuits of the season.
“So, the progress is there in certain forms, but very clearly being marred by a number of other issues and accidents that have appeared as well.”
Overall, Vowles put an end to the most recent rumors concerning Sargeant’s seat and made it obvious that Williams is ready to back him, so for the time being, his seat at the team is looking secure.
“We will continue to work with Logan and invest in Logan, as we want him to succeed. He’s on a journey with us at Williams.”
“We have a young driver programme that we will continue to invest in. Only at the point where all of us come to the conclusion that we’ve reached the end of that road will we make any decisions. But we’re nowhere near that yet,” he concluded.
