The future of Logan Sargeant at Williams is going to be closely monitored after several events since the beginning of the Canadian Grand Prix race weekend that haven’t gone his way.
The young American is in his second season in Formula 1 but his current record doesn’t suggest that he’s destined for a long and storied career in the sport.
Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner was speaking on The Red Flags Podcast about Logan Sargeant’s future with Williams.
F1 can be incredibly cut-throat and it became clear last year that Sargeant may have been prematurely promoted into the series with Williams in need of a second driver alongside Alex Albon.
Unfortunately, he’s not made the steps forward required to guarantee his place on the grid next year with team principal James Vowles publicly courting other drivers.
READ MORE: Williams driver Logan Sargeant’s life outside F1 from height to Donald Trump ties
Guenther Steiner shares when Williams could part ways with Logan Sargeant
The Canadian Grand Prix looked set to be an opportunity for Logan Sargeant to show Williams why they should retain him for next year.
Williams have been heavily linked with Carlos Sainz and it’s hard to argue he wouldn’t be an immediate upgrade on the 23-year-old.
Sargeant reached Q2 in Montreal – knocking Sergio Perez out in the process – and the changeable conditions meant anything could happen during the race.
The most important thing was keeping the car on track and allowing others to make mistakes.
Unfortunately, Sargeant was the first driver to make a race-winning error, hitting the barriers at turn four and bringing out the safety car.
It’s hard to argue that his crash in Canada didn’t further harm Sargeant’s chances of seeing out the rest of the season, let alone being replaced halfway through the campaign.
The FIA has since changed the rules of the age drivers are required to be to earn a full superlicense.
That could pave the way for Andrea Kimi Antonelli to replace Sargeant as early as the Spanish Grand Prix, rather than wait until he turns 18 ahead of his home race in Italy.
READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Williams Racing from team principal to Mercedes relationship
Logan Sargeant’s Formula 1 career on very thin ice
Asked when he thinks Williams will pull the plug on Sargeant, Steiner said: “I think at the end of the year.”
Pressed on why they wouldn’t replace him with someone like Kimi Antonelli before then, he added: “I don’t know how the contract is phrased, I mean there’s a lot of stuff going on there that we don’t know.
“First of all, you always try to work with the people you’ve got.
“You need to show in a team that you try your best. Obviously, at some stage, enough is enough, it’s like, ‘Why are we doing this?’
“I think it will go to the end, I think if he’s got a few more [races] like this [in Canada] before the summer break, after the summer break maybe there’s somebody else in the cockpit.
“And I think it will go altogether with who is going to drive the car next year.”
Should Williams replace Logan Sargeant with Andrea Kimi Antonelli?
It feels as though time has already run out on Logan Sargeant’s Formula 1 career.
Steiner knows better than many how to manage young drivers having overseen the start of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin’s careers.
The trouble for Sargeant is he knows he needs to push harder to try and match Albon, but that’s only forcing him into more mistakes.
With Antonelli now eligible to step up to F1 at any moment and Williams actively seeking a second driver for 2025, Sargeant’s stint in the sport is as good as over already.
The teams towards the bottom of the Constructors’ Championship are very close and if Williams feel Antonelli has a better chance of scoring points than Sargeant, then it makes sense to start negotiating a deal until the end of the season sooner rather than later.
It’s a deal that Toto Wolff is unlikely to say no to as any additional preparation for Antonelli before replacing Lewis Hamilton in 2025 would be very welcome.
The post ‘Enough is enough’: Guenther Steiner shares when he thinks Williams will part ways with Logan Sargeant appeared first on F1 Oversteer.
