James Vowles comes in defence of Logan Sargeant as he states that Williams wants to continue and support the American F1 driver.
It hasn’t been the dream rookie season that Williams’ Sargeant would have hoped for in F1 2023. Some may argue that he has been thrown into a deep end after one year in F2 and in a car which certainly isn’t the best but decent enough to fight for midfield places.
Teammate Alexander Albon has made inroads with his experience, while Sargeant has shone moments of performances but has been inconsistent. He has had multiple incidents too which has certainly hurt his confidence and put his F1 seat in danger.
For now, though, Williams team boss Vowles is backing him. Despite some off runs in recent times, Sargeant has support from his boss as he notes that they want him to remain with the F1 team in 2024 alongside Albon even though they aren’t confirming him yet.
Vowles talks about the updates which Sargeant don’t always get at first which somewhat creates a gap between him and Albon. “There were some very positive signs to take out of the Japanese GP weekend,” said the Williams chief. “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.
“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,” summed up Vowles, who says Sargeant has clear targets and they are trying to help him achieve those in 2023.
“Logan has very clear targets that he has to hit before the end of the season and we’re working with him continuously,” continued Vowles. “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. We will continue to work with Logan and invest in Logan, as we want him to succeed.
“He’s on a journey with us as 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,” summed up Vowles.
Here’s what happened with the Williams pair in Japan
