Vowles comments on replacing Sargeant: 'nothing on the radar'

An exclusive from GPblog.com has shown that 17-year-old Kimi Antonelli could be set to replace Williams' Logan Sargeant. Team Principal James Vowles gives his verdict on the driver situation and whether this could become a reality. 

"We have far bigger problems to solve than drivers at the moment," Vowles said. "Alex has done championship level drives and at the moment he's not scoring points. So I'm not sure if he's going to score points. And fundamentally we have it on us to improve our car going forward. That's my primary concern more than anything else."

Vowles added: "In the sense of Kimi, you have to remember it's just 20 months ago, he was in a Formula 4 car. That's, that's a large amount of time. It's a large, large step up into a Formula 1 car in such a short space of time." 

So far this season, neither Alex Albon nor Logan Sargeant have been able to score a point, with Williams sitting in eigth of the Constructors' Championship. 

Has Vowles spoken to Kimi? 

"I haven't spoken to Kimi since Abu Dhabi last year. Hopefully that puts it in context." 

"In the case of him coming into the car this year, I've always said from the beginning, it's a meritocracy. Logan has to earn his seat. And at the moment, he has some tough targets where he has to get much closer to Alex. But there was nothing on the radar at the moment for replacing him."

It has been reported that a request to the FIA to get a licence for Antonelli has been made which could take several more weeks. However, the minimum age for a superlicence is 18, and yet the Italian is only 17 years old, meaning he would require special dispensation.