James Vowles expands on decision to take Franco Colapinto for rest of F1 2024 and what happened with Logan Sargeant that led to it.
Following the decision from Williams to take in Colapinto to replace Sargeant from this weekend’s Italian GP onward, Vowles went in-depth about why he decided to pull the plug after Zandvoort and take in the Argentine from among couple of other drivers.
Vowles was clear that the terms for Liam Lawson was not enough, while Mick Schumacher didn’t have as much and that they wanted to promote their own academy than take in anyone from the outside. It is a nothing to lose situation with Colapinto.
He only has nine races considering Carlos Sainz will race in 2025, which gives him a less pressure run. But Vowles was impressed still by Colapinto’s abilities in the simulator and also the FP1 running in Silverstone to go with his step up in F2.
After a slow start, Colapinto has picked up to be in the top half of the standings as a rookie with MP Motorsport. Also, his attitude as per Vowles is what they need at Williams. On the subject of Sargeant, he expanded on how he was told about losing his drive.
The major reason was performance and not the incident in Zandvoort. With all the updates at his disposal, the performance was just wasn’t there when compared against Alexander Albon, and so the decision was set in motion after digging through the data.
The choice of words from Vowles especially for Schumacher raised some eyebrows in the social media. Even Toto Wolff felt it was not needed. And so the Williams chief clarified his comments, while revealing that he has already apologised to the German.
Decision of Colapinto over others –
Vowles: “If we go through what options were available to us, there were three options on the table which all of you figured out. One was Liam Lawson, one was Mick and one was Franco. With Liam the contractual conditions from Red Bull did not work out here at Williams. So that did not become an option for us under these circumstances. Then it was a tough choice. Mick has improved a lot from where he was at Haas. He is a competent driver and I know he had his time. He has done an incredible work with Alpine, Mercedes and McLaren in the meantime, from where he was. And all advocates, if you speak, will say he’s improved, he’s adapted and he changed. So now the decision is, if we put Mick in the car, which I think Mick would have done a good job. The other choice was to know if we do
invest in a driver from our academy that has done hundred of thousand laps in our simulator? The only driver two has driven the car in FP1 and on the date from what we can see and how he is performing, he has made considerable progress and significant steps.
“Then comes the decision, do we invest in the future or invest in someone else as a result of it? I think both fall in a category of good, not special. I think we have to be straightforward about this, Mick isn’t special, he would just have been good. I think he come with much more experience than Franco does but here is what I believe in and what Williams believes in and what are the chore values of Williams. Williams has always invested in new generation of drivers and youth. And what I have been speaking all the way through is the investment in the future of Williams. The future of Williams is not to invest in the past. It is investing in talents that allows us to move forward as individuals, it is investing in an academy that you will see the announcement in the next six weeks or so how we are filling up the academy and the amount of finances we put in the academy. And when you’re putting that amount of finance into academy, you’ve got to put your actions where your words are as well at the same time.
“I myself, 25 years ago, was junior. And someone trusted me and believed in me and invested in me. Franco is ahead of the F2 championship he is ahead of Antonelli. He is ahead of Bearman. With all the respect to his team MP Motorsport, his team is not Prema, it is not ART. And he’s doing a good job in building up to it. Now do I think we’ve put someone really in the deep end of the swimming pool? Absolutely, 100%. But if you listen to Franco’s own words, you’ll hear that he’s ready for it, that he’s ready for the challenge and he knows what’s in front of him. So answering your question, it’s that I want to demonstrate to the world, investing in a driver, that can I hope become a very successful reserve driver for us, simulator driver for us, and other aspects, depending on how he performs, is investing in the future of Williams.”
Why drop Sargeant now –
Vowles: “If you speak to every TP up and down the pit lane, no one wants to change a driver mid-season. It’s horrible. It is incredibly tough on the driver, it is tough on the team, it is disruptive, to say the least. And so it’s a good question, why change it now? The cleanest point to have done it would have been at the beginning of the year. Logan, first and foremost, as I said from the outset, Logan at the end of last year was starting to get within a tenth of Alex and starting to be close. And it was good to see his progression. And if that progression continued, we would have a driver, I think, in a very strong place this year. And it didn’t feel like the right point to cut ties or sever ties as a result of it. So the reason now is straightforward. We’ve had enough experience under our belt to know that he’s reached the limit of what he’s able to achieve. And in fact, it’s almost unfair on him for the more continuity. Look at his face when he gets out of the car.
“He’s given you everything he possibly can and it’s not enough. He absolutely never, from a human perspective, did anything but give me 100% of what he was able to do. But the realisation of where he is on his limits now is very clear. It’s clear to everyone. And more so than that, the relationship can only become more and more difficult across the last nine races towards the end of the year because he knows what his future holds, which is not to be an F1 anymore. And actually a clean break at that stage feels like the correct decision for all parties. It feels like it’s fair to Logan. He won’t feel that way today, but I hope he reflects on it in the future and it is fair towards him in that regard. Changing also between a back-to-back race is terrible. It really is an awful thing to do, which hopefully shows you where we are in this. And it wasn’t, just to be very clear for everyone, it’s not just based on an accident. It was based on in the race he had all of the parts that Alex had available to him, but the performance wasn’t there. He was lacking in that area and the gap’s almost as big as it was last year.”
How the process of ending ties came about –
Vowles: “My thought process actually was if you act emotionally and react, you’re going to make some bad decisions. So one of the first things I did is not react to the crash. In fact, many of that isolated myself here. Because the emotion involved in taking hundreds of hours of update kit and watching it burn is pretty painful. And that’s purposely why I’m removing myself from that. It’s also purposely why the decision was taken much later on after the race weekend. And I want it to be performance based. Because performance is at the core of everything. Accidents will happen. They will happen with Alex. They have happened with Alex. It’s not just an accident. It has to be you’re earning your place here in the sport. And with Logan, what I wanted to do is give what I thought was sufficient time for him to demonstrate where he is on tracks that I know we can perform at.
“And at the point where I said earlier in the year, earlier in the year there was a responsibility on us to build a fast enough car. We did not. From Zandvoort onwards, I believe we have built a car that is capable of points now. And that’s where the decision point changes. To answer your question, it comes hand in hand with the performance of the car now being points worthy. And in the case of it, it really did happen after the race on Sunday. And I dug through his data with enough detail to see where he was performance wise, what was happening, and it wasn’t one area. There was a lack still of time management. There was a lack of pace. And where he finished was just too far back.”
Sargeant contact –
Vowles: “So the contact was done all on Monday. And actually I was reasonably ill for those that I don’t think I spoke to anyone here. But I was horizontal for most of Monday. I’m trying to sort contracts out. I feel fine today. So as a result of that, I didn’t want any physical presence with anyone as a result of this. So just an apology to that. Actually, it was Tuesday. Monday was a back holiday, wasn’t it? It was Tuesday that Logan was contacted. It was the same day.”
Colapinto future, what he should do –
Vowles: “So even before he was here coming into this F1 seat, we were looking at his future. As a part of academy, our responsibility is to work with him and with his teams around him as well, as to where your future lies. And there’s opportunities in other racing series. As I said, depending on how he performs, the future to a certain extent is in his hands. And what I mean by that is if he performs exceptionally well, clearly he’ll remain here as reserve driver and we’ll invest in him in terms of TPC testing and other elements that we’re able to do with him at the same time. You may see interest from other teams as well, depending on how he performs. So he has a future in that regard. And Formula One is fickle. Look at what’s changed in six months, let alone one year. So no one here around this table knows what opportunities exist in any of the teams in 2025 or 2026 in truth. So you’re investing in someone that I think will have opportunity and there’s still seats available in the grid as well. He has nothing to prove to the world. Other drivers have something to prove to the world.
“And what that means is you’re not going to see a driver going out there trying to demonstrate to everyone, I have a deserving place in this world. And so therefore he knows that he has time to build into it. We start here in Monza because he has the least experience in Monza in this circumstance and that’s important to him. Next, what we’re expecting of him, it is his own words, this is not mine, is that he knows how to progress race on race. He’s done the same in Formula Two this year. If you look at where he started and where he is now, it’s a very different picture between the two. And the way you do that is you build up in a method that’s systematic and he has that available to him. And his own words are by the end of the year, he should be matching Alex. And on the journey there, he should be closing the gap every race weekend. And I think those are realistic targets. They’re not ones I set him. What I’ve said to him is actually more enjoy the moment and enjoy the element of things. Don’t think about the million details that come towards you. Focus on the ones that generate milliseconds of performance. And use this as an experience game. But his own targets are that and I think that’s somewhat reasonable.”
What impressed –
Vowles: “The bits that you wouldn’t have seen is actually the bits that impressed me the most. In the simulator, as I said, he’s done hundreds of thousands of laps in the simulator. The car’s been developed with his work fundamentally in the background. That’s normal. Academy drivers, that’s their job to do so. But we set in targets. What we do is always benchmark relative to Alex. And then we give them gaps. And it’s not just lap times. It’s consistency, growth, and how you work with different tools and systems. From about Melbourne onwards, he’s made a significant step in all of that regard. But in F2, what’s impressed me is, as I said, MP, with all due respect to them, they’re not plumber. They’re a small team. They don’t develop in the same ways. And he’s out there fighting for podiums and wins. And Imola, the move he did was brave. As I said to him, try not to be that brave in the F1 car. But I’ve seen a step up in his approach. And what’s really impressed me with him is his mental aptitude. In other words, how he performs under pressure. If you look at him, it’s the same Franco, whether he’s deeply pressured or not. Even when you speak to him now, you’ll see it’s the same Franco. And that’s what you’re looking for in a driver. You’re looking for them to be able to cope with this amount of pressure on their shoulders and perform at the highest level.”
Wolff’s response – “I know James in such a long time and he’s a bright mind and he finds his feet in the team principal’s role. And I think, you know, he will have chosen his words. Mick is someone that has won pretty much everything. F4, F3, F2. He’s been, I guess, crushed in the Haas environment at that stage. And we have not seen it. But every team needs to take his own decisions. And for the best interest of the team, and then also to decide how it wants to talk about their drivers in the media. And so everybody needs to do this in a way that they think is good.”
Clarification from Vowles on F1 TV – “Very much so [that I want to clarify]. The headlines afterwards this morning, what really came across is me using the word ‘special’ in the context of Mick. And I really want to clarify that, first and foremost, I am not here to Mick down. Mick is…a world championship team has chosen him as reserve driver and there’s a good reason behind it. It is because he’s a really strong candidate, and the word special, I use in the context of multiple world champions like Ayrton Senna, fundamentally Lewis as well. Clearly that is a foolish thing to do as a comparison.
“Here’s where Mick is, he’s had a tough run of it, he’s made some exceptional progress and he’s in a very strong team around him. Our decision is based on the fact that we want to go with our academy and our drivers. I have apologised to Mick as well, he didn’t request anything but it is important for me because he’s incredibly very close to me and it just came across entirely the wrong way. More than anything else, I wanted that to be abundantly clear, we don’t doubt his abilities but we as Williams have to go with our academy, it make sense of what we are doing.”
Here’s Franco Colapinto on all about his F1 move
Here’s Williams bringing in Franco Colapinto
Here’s Logan Sargeant when asked in Zandvoort
Here’s Logan Sargeant on FP3 crash
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