With a series of crashes and incidents, Logan Sargeant is negatively impacting 2024 development at Williams.
The British outfit deserves credit for its impressive 2023 campaign, assembling a competitive FW45 over the winter. Despite the struggles faced by Logan Sargeant, teammate Alex Albon is securing points for Williams relatively consistently – and at a variety of circuits.
Comfortably seventh in the Championship, Williams is on track for their best F1 finish since 2017. Under the leadership of James Vowles, there are reasons to be optimistic about their long-term potential.
However, this does not mean the Grove-based team is without weaknesses. Vowles has outlined ambitions to improve the development facilities at Williams, in addition to a concerted effort to acquire top engineering talent from rivals.
Among the many components needed for an F1 team to be successful is a strong driver pairing. As previously mentioned, Alex Albon is proving more than capable of delivering results in the FW45. The same cannot be said for Logan Sargeant.
Sargeant’s costly mistakes
The American driver, like most rookies, has been given a significant grace period. Furthermore, flashes of speed in Bahrain and Jeddah were indications that Sargeant could produce results. Unfortunately, this promise has amounted to little.
Sargeant is the only driver (who has raced every round of 2023) without. On the surface level, the discrepancy in output to his teammate is significantly below average.
A series of stellar performances from Liam Lawson (a rookie with very limited preparation) have only worsened the perception of Sargeant’s contribution.
YESSSSS 👊🏼 it’s P9 for Liam: first F1 points of his career in only his third GP! Amazing job 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼#SingaporeGP 🇸🇬 pic.twitter.com/fmcl2CStIK
— Scuderia AlphaTauri (@AlphaTauriF1) September 17, 2023
More detailed metrics of performance aren’t any more flattering for the 21-year-old. Sargeant is yet to outqualify Alex Albon in 2023. The average difference in lap time is over half a second, larger than any other teammate pairing.
One of the strengths Sargeant enjoyed at the beginning of 2023 was a relatively clean record. Unlike some rookies, the former Carlin driver appeared a safe pair of hands – avoiding incidents or huge mistakes.
This is no longer the case, having crashed in Zandvoort, Singapore and most recently in Suzuka. A combination of errors and an uninspiring pace is certainly unhelpful when fighting to earn an F1 contract extension.
James Vowles has even revealed that Sargeant’s indicates are impacting development for next season:
“Under the cost cap, what you don’t want to be doing is overproducing parts. We’ve had more attrition than expected, I think it’s fair to say.
“We have enough to deal with the incident today [Sargeant’s crash in qualifying].
“But it means we’ll have to divert attention away from other items [for 2024] while producing more spare parts before the end of the year.”
A small window of opportunity
Though it must be stressed that Sargeant will have more chances to prove himself, there is growing doubt in his abilities to take them.
Brazil’s Felipe Drugovich has entered the fray as a contender to join Williams, who will need two strong drivers if they are to continue their ascent up the field.
It should be mentioned that Sargeant has often been second to receive Williams’ update this year. As such, he has suffered from slightly slower machinery than his teammate on numerous occasions.
With that said, even by his own admission, notable progression is still a requirement.
For the foreseeable future, the pressure will be on Logan Sargeant to convince Williams of his potential.
