Logan Sargeant given clear Williams deadline to save his F1 career

10 October 2023 , 19:03

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American Williams F1 racer Logan Sargeant (Image: Getty Images)

James Vowles said "it would be wrong" to make a decision on Logan Sargeant's Formula 1 future before the end of the season.

The American racer is the only driver on the grid still yet to win a point in 2023. Fellow rookie Nyck de Vries also failed to score but was stripped of his AlphaTauri seat after just 10 races.

Williams have opted for a more patient approach. Team principal Vowles is particularly mindful that Sargeant was promoted from Formula 2 a year earlier than planned and, realistically, before he was ready.

So he wants to give the Floridian as much time as possible to prove that he can contribute. Asked when a decision is likely to be made about the team's 2024 driver line-up, Vowles made clear his intention to give Sargeant as much time as he could.

"I suspect it will be to the end of the season," he said. "I think we've already committed in the direction of travel we're in, he has targets to that and it would be wrong to go against that decision point. So, end of the year."

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Vowles went on to reveal that he is in near-constant communication with his driver to help him as much as he can. "He and I talk at least once a week, if not multiple times a week," he added. The pace is there – that's the thing that we wouldn't be able to fix or repair.

"But what happens is when it comes down to the crunch time, there are elements of inconsistency that creep in and in form of that goes into an accident at times. In Suzuka the [qualifying] lap he did was line on line on the data with Alex [Albon, Sargeant's team-mate].

"But, obviously, it's marred by the fact that the last corner he had far too aggressive throttle application and so crashed, and a significant crash, as a result of it. What we're working with him on is actually the progression up until that point.

"He dialled it from two seconds away to Alex to within a tenth in FP3 – in fact, he was faster in FP3 – and it's actually keeping that mindset all the way through we're trying to do. We have, and I've said this publicly, a responsibility to invest in our rookie drivers.

"We put him there and we've given him nearly no testing mileage from us. We're used to 30,000 kilometres, not 850 kilometres. But what we want to see is continued progress and now focus on making sure we keep consistency, which will then deliver results."

Daniel Moxon