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Vowles praises Sargeant's 'huge mental resilience' after Williams axe
Logan Sargeant will, of course, make way for Carlos Sainz at Williams after the 2024 season. The outgoing Ferrari driver joins an exciting Williams project alongside Alex Albon. Although he has waxed lyrical about his new signing in the media lately, team principal James Vowles still has praise for current Williams driver Logan Sargeant. The American has only scored one point in his 35 F1 starts so far, but still has the potential to compete on the 'world stage', Vowles said on Friday.
Praise for Sargeant's 'mental resilience'
"One of the strengths that's underrated in his regard is he has a huge mental resilience," the Brit began in Friday's team principals press conference. "He takes punishment in the media, in the world, really, almost weekend on weekend. But when it comes the following weekend, he's cleared his mind of that and he's here just to perform fundamentally. And he builds up to the weekend in the way it needs to be," he revealed.
Sargeant 'put himself at risk' due to previous weaknesses
It's not that he hasn't progressed. If you look across the last 18 months, you can clearly see that from where he was to where he is now in terms of number of mistakes, proximity to Alex, where he's qualifying and where he achieves, and how many seconds behind he's finishing now. It is all on the right journey."
"What he's very good at doing now, which was a weakness beforehand, was building up into the weekend fundamentally. So finding the limit, but approaching it from a bottom-up perspective rather than top-down. Because top-down, when you make one mistake, you lose a session, you start to put yourself at risk," Vowles explained.
The team boss praised the driver for maturing significantly, noting that he has become much better at handling pressure and challenges. "He's matured a lot as a driver, his own words rather than mine, but he's able to deal with the pressure and what comes at you much, much better as a result of it now. And he's also using a lot more of the tools that are available to him, both within the car and outside of the car, within the engineering systems that we have, et cetera."
Vowles: Sargeant can still perform on the 'world stage'
Vowles reinforced Sargeant's skill level, too. He believes that Sargeant is still a top-tier racing driver despite his tough F1 tenure. "What I would always ascertain is we have to remember that we have the top 20 drivers in the world fundamentally competing on a world stage. And he's ending up something akin to a few tenths off. And that's not a large amount. That still puts you in good stead for the remainder of the world. I'm impressed with, as I said, how when things are difficult, he can reset himself and bring it back onto a world stage." Vowles concluded.
Logan Sargeant's post-F1 future is yet to be announced. Where will the American end up, and will he prove himself to be a top talent outside of Formula 1?
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