Exclusive
Williams boss Vowles saw unhappy Sargeant: 'Not fair to go through with this'
- Ludo van Denderen
For months, James Vowles had held Logan Sargeant's hand, defending him whenever there was another disappointing result. The Williams team boss did not send the American away because he could not give Sargeant the best possible material. But at Zandvoort, Sargeant did have that, and still, he failed to impress. A big crash and the extra cost for Williams was not pleasant for the team either.
So Sargeant's resignation did not come completely out of the blue, but still. During a press event at the Williams motorhome, the GPblog to Vowles therefore why exactly this moment had been chosen to get rid of Sargeant? "Noone wants to change a driver mid-season. It's horrible. It is incredibly tough on the driver, it is tough on the team, it is disruptive, to say the least. And so it's a good question, why change it now? The cleanest point to have done it would have been at the beginning of the year. First and foremost, as I said from the outset, Logan at the end of last year was starting to get within a tenth of Alex [Albon] and starting to be close, and it was good to see his progression. If that progression continued, we would have had a driver, I think, in a very strong place this year. And it didn't feel like the right point to cut ties and sever ties as a result of it."
'Sargeant had reached his ceiling'
Vowles then explained the exact reason for saying goodbye to Sargeant between Zandvoort and Monza: "We've had enough experience under our belt to know that he's reached the limit of what he's able to achieve. In fact, it's almost unfair on him, furthermore, continuing with it. Look at his face when he gets out of the car. He's given you everything he possibly can, and it's not enough."
That is why, Vowles argued, he had little choice but to put Sargeant out of his misery. "It's obvious to everyone. And more than that, the relationship can only become more and more difficult across the last nine races towards the end of the year, because he knows what his future holds, which is not to be in F1 anymore. And actually, a clean break at that stage feels like the correct decision for all parties."
"It feels like it's fair to Logan. He won't feel that way today, but I hope you reflect on it in the future and that it is fair towards him in that regard. Changing also between a back-to-back race is terrible. It really is an awful thing to do, which hopefully shows you where we are in this. And it wasn't, just to be very clear for everyone, it's not just based on an accident. It was based on, in the race, he had all of the parts that Alex had available to him, but the performance wasn't there. He was lacking in that area, and the gap's almost as big as it was last year."
This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy
Want more Formula 1? Then follow GPblog on our various social media channels!