Vowles spoke at length to Sargeant: 'He was in a tough situation'

Two weeks after he said he experienced the "hardest moment of his career" when he had to relinquish his F1 car to teammate Alex Albon, Sargeant started the race weekend in Japan with a crash in the first free practice. This did not involve a rookie mistake, unlike last year, according to the American himself.

Vowles on talks with Sargeant

After the first free practice, Vowles talks about how Sargeant and himself handled the difficult situation in Melbourne. "I've been chatting to him all week, all these last few weeks in fact, because this is the point where you've got to keep a driver very close to you," says the former Mercedes chief strategist.

"You've sort of given them a very difficult situation to deal with, no fault of their own. But he was honestly in a very good state of mind this week, and last night again, when I called him at about 9-10pm. Really, really strong state of mind, just wanted to get back into the car and get going, but not with the intention of proving to the world he deserves a seat," Vowles explained.

He continued: "Just his normal approach to things. And what you saw here wasn't a driver making mistake because I think they were pushing to the limit. It's a very different type of mistake, a frustrating one by all accounts, because it wasn't on the limit of what the car could do, there was far more difficult there, in there he just didn't know where the car was on track relative to where he expected it to be anyway. So I don't think you're seeing there the reaction of someone that wasn't driving in Melbourne, I think you're seeing more just a situation that could have appeared at any time."