Piastri lost his best friend in the paddock: 'Bold move to put Franco in'
Following the Dutch GP in Zandvoort, it was announced: Logan Sargeant will be replaced by Franco Colapinto until the end of the year, when Carlos Sainz will become Alex Albon's teammate at Williams. McLaren driver Oscar Piastri reacted to his former teammate in junior categories getting substituted out by the British team ahead of the Grand Prix weekend in Monza.
The Australian driver was asked about the situation by GPblog. He said he reached out to Sargeant, who he considers to be his best friend on the grid. "I sent him a text yesterday. He seemed okay. Obviously a little bit of a shock. Obviously it wasn't an easy time for him in F1. It was much more difficult for him than maybe I expected it to be going into F1. I think for me, his potential was much greater than what was on show in F1, for whatever reason it might be," he explained.
According to Piastri, Sargeant had much more potential. "I know firsthand, being his teammate in the junior categories, racing him in basically everything, I know how quick he is. I don't think the change was completely unexpected. Quite a bold move to put Franco in, I would say," he rated Williams' decision.
Piastri then wished the best to his former Formula 3 Prema teammate. "Best of luck to him. Just a shame that, for whatever reason, he wasn't able to show everything that he's got. Because in the junior categories, he was genuinely one of the quickest guys I went up against. I think his potential is much greater than what some people have seen," he concluded.
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Interesting that Piastri rates Sargeant as a 'quick driver' while they were team mates, considering that he has never won a single championship in the 6 years that he has been racing in single seater junior categories, while Piastri himself have won 3 in that time, and was a bees-dick away form a 4th title as well, the British F4, where he came in P2. Knowing the character of Oscar, he is likely just being polite to his old team mate and not to further discourage him when he is down,
Franco may not do any better than Logan in qually and racing, Oscar but maybe Williams are hoping to reduce the repair bills
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