Williams team boss James Vowles has admitted ‘what I’m worried about’ with Logan Sargeant after they threw the American into Formula 1 ‘at the deep end’ as a rookie.
The Fort Lauderdale, Florida native faced a turbulent time in his first season in the pinnacle of motorsport last year. But Sargeant has also struggled to kick on during the early rounds of his second season for Williams. He is 21st and last in the drivers’ standings after four races.
Sargeant has so far started his sophomore year with a personal-best result of P14 during the Saudi Arabian GP. The 23-year-old ended the Bahrain GP down in P20 and the Japanese GP in P17. Williams further withdrew Sargeant from the Australian GP to give Alex Albon his car.
Williams threw Logan Sargeant in ‘at the deep end’ as a Formula 1 rookie
Williams and Sargeant would have wanted the American to enjoy a more competitive start to 2024 after Vowles retained him. The Grove team gave Sargeant another single-year contract in December after scoring just one fortuitous point over his rookie campaign to Albon’s 27.
Sargeant enjoyed his sole top-10 finish on home soil at the United States GP. But he moved into P10 when the stewards disqualified Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc over excessive wear to their floors. His average finishing position over 2023 was P14.8 and is P17 in 2024.
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Albon also dominated Sargeant 22-0 in qualifying last year and finished 19 of the 22 Grand Prix as Williams’ lead driver. The 28-year-old has also begun 2024 with a 3-0 record against Sargeant in qualifying and holds a 2-1 record in Grand Prix after a crash at the Japanese GP.
James Vowles feels Logan Sargeant got overconfident at an early stage
Vowles now admits that Williams dealt Sargeant a tough hard to start his rookie season in Formula 1 last year. The team principal concedes that Sargeant was unprepared compared to the likes of Oscar Piastri. He also feels the American got overconfident at an early stage.
“We threw him in at the deep end. No doubt about it,” Vowles told Track Limits. “Normally, what you’d have done if I take an example of another rookie on the grid, Oscar Piastri, he did circa 10, 11,000 kilometres of testing in an F1 car.
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“With Logan, we gave him a day and a half in Bahrain [at the only pre-season test] and said, ‘Good luck to you’. As I said all the way through the season, what I’m looking for from him is continued progress from where he is.
“And what happened, actually, is at the very start of the year, Bahrain and Saudi, Alex wasn’t quite perhaps delivering the same level of performance you saw later. He evolved massively and Logan was close. He did a lap in qualifying in Saudi that was deleted but it was faster.
“So, what happened was straight away he was thinking, ‘I’ve got this. We’re in a good place’. It took quite a while with me to work with him to go, ‘Look, let’s build this up slowly. My expectation on you is that I’m not worried about what the performance gap is.
“‘What I’m worried about is the continued evolution of what you’re doing, your thought process, how you race, how you patinise things, how you work with the team’. It’s a package because it’s a long-term relationship that we need to build. Not, ‘You’re good at one race’.”
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