Sargeant talks about ‘hectic’ Japanese Grand Prix as contract decisions loom

Logan Sargeant has spoken about his “hectic” Japanese Grand Prix and what that means for his future at Williams.

It was a nightmare Sunday for the Williams F1 team as they suffered a double DNF after both cars received damage in isolated incidents. Alex Albon suffered intense damage on the opening lap which forced him to retire on Lap 27. Logan Sargeant was also forced to retire following an incident where he collided with Valtteri Bottas. Sargeant finished his race on Lap 22.

Despite the similarity in the fates of both Albon and Sargeant’s DNFs, it appears that Sargeant’s race result is a lot more important than Albon’s.

As it stands, Sargeant’s current seat at Williams is the only one that has not been “claimed” for the 2024 season. With mounting pressure on Sargeant to perform, this result comes as a devastating blow to the American rookie.

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What happened to Sargeant?

The American had already started his weekend off with a disastrous qualifying session where he crashed out. This resulted in him starting from the pitlane. He also had a ten-second time penalty to deal with. These were enacted upon him due to changes made to his car in Parc Fermé conditions.

This didn’t seem to hurt Sargeant too much and even the Williams team seemed positive about his race during the first few laps.

“Our American racer naturally made up some positions after multiple opening lap incidents”.

However, Sargeant damaged his front wing in a Lap five tangle with Valtteri Bottas and it was a downward spiral from there. The team tried to fix his car, but the damage seemed to create more issues as the race went on.

Sargeant has taken ownership of the incident with Bottas.

“It’s my fault”

When asked how he is feeling about his seat with Williams for 2024, Sargeant said he wanted to “just move on”. 

Sargeant is the only, current, 2023 driver who hasn’t scored points. This statistic, with the events of the weekend combined, will make his claim to the 2024 Williams seat all the more difficult.

Feature Image Credit: WilliamsF1.com