(Motorsports news) Logan Sargeant’s future at Williams has been called into question following a string of mishaps over the summer break. He crashed hard during qualifying and the race in the Dutch Grand Prix, slammed the barriers at the Singapore GP, and then crashed heavily during Q1 at the Japanese GP last weekend.
Those occurrences come at a time when Williams wants to see the American exhibit consistent growth over the rest of the season to demonstrate that he can move up alongside Alex Albon next season. While Sargeant’s latest crash sparked early speculation that Felipe Drugovich, Liam Lawson, or Mick Schumacher could be in the running to replace him, Vowles has shot off any notion that he is seeking elsewhere for his team’s second seat.
Instead, in his post-race ‘Vowles Verdict’ video on the Williams website, he stated that the team wanted Sargeant to succeed – and that they would have to work with him to make that happen. “Logan has very clear targets that he has to hit before the end of the season and we’re working with him continuously,” stated Vowles.
“That’s the key point: we’re collaborating with him.” We want him to excel and to be in the car the following year. This is entirely our fault. “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.”
While Sargeant’s Suzuka qualifying disaster drew headlines last week, Vowles claimed that diving further into the data from the Japanese Grand Prix revealed the exact improvement that Williams desired to see. “There were some very positive signs to take out of it,” he stated. “First and foremost, Logan is not built to the same aerodynamic standards as Alex.
“Due to the amount of attrition we’ve had this year, we have updates on Alex’s car that aren’t on Logan’s.” When you see a performance offset, it’s not always what it appears to be on the timing pages. “Additionally, if we look at Suzuka’s case, he did a build-up over the weekend.” As he entered FP3, he set a time that matched Alex’s, and until the accident, he was overlaying line online within a tenth of Alex’s performance at one of the season’s most difficult circuits.
“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.”
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