F1 News
Vowles expresses preference for Williams driver alongside Albon in 2024
Williams team boss James Vowles says he would prefer to see Logan Sargeant drive alongside Alexander Albon in 2024 too. The rookie experienced a series of disappointing results and crashes in recent Formula 1 races, after which calls for the 22-year-old American to be shown the door grew louder and louder. However, Vowles recognises that he himself has a share in Sargeant's performance.
Vowles wants to keep Sargeant at Williams
Vowles expresses confidence in Sargeant, who has been under pressure, particularly since the summer break due to his crashes in the Grand Prix weekends in Holland, Singapore and Japan. The strong performance of Liam Lawson, who replaces the injured Daniel Ricciardo at AlphaTauri, has added to this. Indeed, there would be a possibility for Red Bull Racing to loan the New Zealander at Williams for a year, although Lawson himself seems to rule that option out.
"Logan has very clear targets on what he has to hit before the end of the season," Vowles stresses in a Williams video, in which the team boss looks back at the Japan GP. "We are working with him continuously. That's the important point. We want him to succeed and we want him in the car next year."
The Williams boss stressed that Sargeant has been thrown in at the deep end as a rookie. "We have taken someone straight from Formula 2 without any significant testing, put him in this car for a day and a half in Bahrain, and then wished them well on a season that has been awfully challenging for rookie drivers, full stop," Vowles explains.
Can Sargeant breathe a sigh of relief?
Moreover, Sargeant does not have all the updates at his disposal that teammate Alex Albon does, Vowles argues. "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."
Sargeant does not yet have certainty of a seat in 2024, but Vowles is trying to take some of the pressure off his shoulders. "We will continue to work with Logan and invest in Logan as we want him to succeed as a result of the journey he's on. He's on a journey with us at Williams," the team boss continued. "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."