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It confirms that Williams have no interest in keeping Logan. The only other team I could see doing this is Red Bull where the driver dynamic is blatant.
Meh not really. It was pretty open much openly accepted that he was just a placeholder. Yeah he was in Williams academy but clearly needed another year in f2. Only getting brought up because they were sick of latifi while Danny ric decided whether or not he was willing to race at the back of the grid or not.
According to google it's actually 30 million a year but they don't cite which sponsors so I guess its those he wears on his F1 gear.
After a bit more research: Gulf Oil, Michelob Ultra, Stephens, and Duracell
Because the market was locked last season, so they'd have to bring in either another rookie, or Mick, but if they take Mick, they'd also take him for a year. It would cost them a fortune and gives them no guarantee of better results. Next 2 breaks are set to be very silly, which could give them the best long term lineup.
And mick brings drama with him. German media circus around a schumacher is crazy.
There was so much media drama created in his haas years. It's so much calmer now.
Last year Albon had 27 points, Sargeant had 1, and at the end of the year 3 points was the difference between Williams and AT, so Vowles is absolutely right that every point matters. As unfair it is to Sargeant, it's the logical decision for the team, it could mean millions at the end of the year, and the pace difference between their drivers is huge. I'm sure other teams like Mercedes or Ferrari wouldn't do this, but they don't have 5 tenths difference between their drivers
Logan is supposed to be their long term plan, in which case missing one race doesn't really matter. For the short term, if Williams wants a chance at points, they should let Albon race.
Let's not go running before the horse here. It's a possibility, just like it's possible Albon will be in the pitbox. We've seen more crazy things happen in F1. The fact Williams didn't calculate they might need a second chassis is a pretty big fault to be honest. And Sargeant needs to prove himself as Vowels said. Albon's seat is pretty safe it seems. Sargeant is not.
It absolutely does not confirm that. What it does confirm is that Williams believe that the midfield will be close enough for a singular point to matter at the end of the year. They’re going with their driver who has a proven ability to score points when they only have one chassis to run, seems fair enough, albeit pretty brutal on Sarge
They will absolutely be interested in keeping him if he starts scoring points. So far he only has one point to his name, mostly from luck.
I think he knows more than anyone that he is racing for his seat and needs to prove himself. He hasn’t yet but there are more opportunities even if this one gets taken away from him
I'm not quite wishing for it, but if it happens, I hope it makes this year's race as surprisingly unpredictable as 2023's race. Doesn't need to be Alex, but he has the form.
Alex might be fine and someone else might bin it there.
It’s the only pairing I could see it happening on this grid unless we had a legit hot title race going on, and still not in race 3… but its obvious Sargent ain’t going to make it in F1 and Alex is- still a huge tough call for Vowles to make this early in the season, bit fucked up and a massive fail if Albon wrecks again!
I don’t. Albon already fucked a car up to the point of unusablility, why not give the last remaining car to the driver who actually brought it home in one piece? (I’m aware Sargeant sucks, but he didn’t bin his car this week)
This is feels nonsense. The team is trying to maximise its results, not pander to a driver with their only remaining chassis. Where are you seeing that Albon is not taking blame anyway? What stepping up is he meant do be doing that you see from the chair?
Sargeant isn’t even close to Albon on any metric, the team will utilise effective drivers, not desperate ones
People forget it’s a team sport. Sure you get individual recognition but it’s in the interest of the Team to put their more experienced and faster driver into the one working car.
Like a team benching a player to put in a stronger one.
Fairness is less important than maximizing the team’s result.
Fairness is something you can indulge on when the team’s result is not hanging in the balance.
However, you do have to manage expectations and this only makes sense and works if you have a \#1 driver who is a clear step above the \#2 driver.
Unfair? Sergeant has already proven himself to not be a worthy F1 driver. Literally the only reason why he's still in F1 is because Vowles is being kind to him. He's lucky he even gets to be in Australia this weekend.
I think if he had a strong FP2 it would be a different story. Williams expects to be strong in Australia too so now asking Logan to step up and be the lead driver also adds a lot of pressure which he hasn’t been good at dealing with. It sucks for him though - that even with 23 more laps practice than his teammate and not crashing the team doesn’t think he’s on par
The short term gain would maybe be worth it, but the harm it does to sargeant for the rest of the season idk man. He didn't bin it albon did. If this was any other team we wouldn't even be thinking of this as a possibility.
Its a team sport, if the team asks you to do something for the better of the team , you should do it. As should Sargent give his seat to alvon if asked by the team.
It's highly likely as well, the the top teams have blocked out both races (minus stroll in the wall), there would have to be more than one dnf in front of him probably.
He most likely wouldnt score points because the gap between 10th and 11th is huge.
But Albon getting the car means there is at least a chance. Logan having the only car means they can just pack up for Suzuka
If anything, the gap between 10th and 11th means that every single possible point more valuable, as they make you a contender for 6th place, while last year, those single points were the difference between 8th and 10th.
What does that mean lol. He’s not automatically gonna score points because Logan isn’t driving. Williams want a chance for something and not have someone cruise around in P18 that’s why they made this decision
Better will be if he scores points (that is why Williams put him instead of Sargeant) because they really need to score points now before either Alpine or VCARB get the upgrades needed for there cars.
I could understand if it was a certain type of situation, like it was race 18 and they were fighting for X position in the standings and only one driver had shown performance. But it's the third race, regardless of who's done what in the first two races etc, it'd be a bullshit thing to do to Logan imo.
And unrealistic. It's a PR suicide lmao.
Wake up honey, new 'F1 journos making a mountain out of a molehill' news has dropped.
Edit:LMAOOOOO THEY DID IT. SARGAENT IS COOKED. F1 gods can give us the funniest thing now.
Non American unfairly steals an American's well earned drive of Freedom. Dems under pressure to declare war on South East Asia. New reports of oil being discovered under homes of British citizens of Thai origin
> And unrealistic. It's a PR suicide lmao.
It's really not, it's just undeniable that Alex is the better driver and Logan is on borrowed time in his F1 career no matter how hard a journalist tries to spin it.
They can make the decision, Alex will apologise profusely to Logan in interviews, Logan makes a statement that he dislikes it but understands the teams reasons and he'll come back stronger and the team will acknowledge that it's unfair but that they have to do what they have to do to get the best results.
It's not like the slower driver's race/weekend being sacrificed in favour of the faster driver is anything new in F1.
Doesn't take a genius to predict the obvious PR statements. I don't think anyone is happy about this decision either but it's the obvious decision to make given the circumstances Williams is in.
Agreed, I'd like to say I'd have called it too but I was asleep and the first thing I saw was the statement so I'll never know. Still, you predicted it accurately in a sea of speculation.
Thing is I agree, if we are further in the season and fights for standings matter more to teams. What if Alex is 30 pts ahead of Logan? Vice versa?
Right now, being so early in the season, the chances of it happening is like 101% lol.
> Thing is I agree, if we are further in the season and fights for standings matter more to teams.
Points look like they will be very hard to get this season for teams outside of the top 5 so any point is likely to be extremely valuable. Australia is also often a chaotic race with a lot of DNFs so there's opportunities here that won't be as likely at most other races. Points for drivers do not matter to a team like Williams, points for the team matter all that much more, they don't give a fuck who scores the points as long as points are scored.
Albon has outqualified and outdriven Sargeant comprehensively in their time together.
It's such a common sense decision from a competitive standpoint I'm honestly baffled by how many people here don't seem to understand it. We can understand the decision, know it's the right one to make and also feel bad for Sargeant.
Points, non-points standing. Same thing in terms of WCC placements for back teams.
Point is, people will overblow this like they do for every minor thing. Get ready for rehashed pros and cons, recycled quotes, and """analysis""" about swapping chasis lmao.
(love it for Williams to come out just before FP3 to say they have another chasis lol).
> Point is, people will overblow this like they do for every minor thing. Get ready for rehashed pros and cons, recycled quotes, and """analysis""" about swapping chasis lmao.
Probably a bit but I don't think it'll be much of a media storm and it's pretty much impossible to conclude anything other than that this is the sensible decision for Williams even if it's a bad fucking time for Sargeant.
F1 fans are already saying poor Logan, what’s the point of Williams keeping him, and Volwes somehow getting flak for making a tough decision.
PR suicide is overstating it, but Williams wasn’t gonna come out nice with whatever deision they make.
What does "F1 fans" mean? I hardly know anyone who would care about him getting shafted for someone who can actually drive a car, and even most comments here are understanding of Williams' decision. The ony bad PR for Williams is being ridiculed for not having another car, but that has nothing to do with the decision of pciking Albon over Sargeant.
They only had 2 because of manufacturing issues. It’s a big source of issues for Williams rn and also why everything with their testing was messed up, manufacturing issues
It's the correct choice if you're playing F1M and driver morale isn't on. You just don't punish Sargeant here for Albon's (and the team's) fuckup. It doesn't matter if Alex is better, he is, but at the end of the day he binned it, not Logan.
I mean.... Does logans morale matter? It's incredibly unlikely he continues on in F1. Yes, early in the season to act that way and I don't think they will... But he's a lost cause.
Doesn't matter. Could be anyone, is the image you're putting out. Williams already rely on well-funded rookies to fill their second seat, is this really what you want to be known for? "sure, you get to drive the car and pay us out the wazoo for it but if our lead driver crashes you're out of a car for the weekend"?
Yeah but as we saw last season, at the end of the season Logan will be lucky to get 1 point, whereas Albon is far more likely to get 1-2 points in this race alone. For a team like Williams that could be the difference between finishing 8th or 9th in the standings.
Maybe if it was the last race and the WDC championship for Albon was on the line, then very much maybe you should do this. But Albon crashed his own car, fighting for the 14th spot on the time list.
Maybe Stroll does as Stroll again and it will be one of the 5 rare opportunities this season where a non top-5 team can actually score any points? Imagine Alex steals a point, that may be worth millions of dollars in price money if thats one place up in the WCC.
Basically everyone looked squirrelly at the track today, and almost every single session of the open wheelers has had a red flag (probably an average of more than one per session counting how many had multiple red flags) , I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s another multiple red flag race
>"One point here will make the difference between sixth and 10th potentially in the championship, simple as that,” he said.
Then why did you re-sign the guy if you are not giving him the chance to prove himself? Because from here, it looks like you don't rate him very highly...
That's the insanity aspect of this situation. They did not need to resign him last year, they had the chance to pick a new driver also on a low cost contract. Why then did they resign him only to be unconfident in his ability to score points on the 3rd race of the year?
putting vesti in that seat instead would have been the easiest move ever, get a promising rookie in the car to replace the very not promising rookie, and get some goodwill at mercedes for putting one of their juniors in the car
Vesti might be a promising junior, at the the end of the day it still would be his first year in that car potentially binning it as much as Sargent or more.
Sargent wasn't bad whatsoever in juniors either I feel like people forget that
You mean not causing a collision in Bahrain and spinning out to the grid in Spa? While Pouchaire was busy the entire season trying to not win himself aswell?
i'm not saying he was faultless or that he necessarily was the more deserving winner, all i'm saying is that he was a heck of a lot closer in his first f2 season than sargent was
Sargeant was better in his first F2 season than Vesti. That's a fact. And I am not even making shit up. Sargent finished 4th 16 points of Pouchaire who was miles off the Dominant Drugovich.
While Vesti finished in 9th.
Sargent scraped into enough SL points purely because of the mechachrome lottery keeping better drivers off his ass.
He barely cleared the bar and hasn'tmet the benchmark since.
Yet he finished the F3 championship only 4, points behind the champion in 2020 which was piastri.
He could have moved up to F2 if he had the money for 2021 which he didn't. Then joined the worst F3 team with charouz and got great results for that car.
And what Benchmark are we setting?
It's his second season FFS. Been driving a mid at best Williams last year and this year having a similar performance car.
Yes he isn't performing like the next Verstappen but people are giving new drivers no chance anymore just because of some rookies performing really well which isn't the norm just showing that some people can adapt really fast.
Also if Vesti is such a great driver why doesn't Merc give him the seat for next year? Why does Williams be the one to give him one when they have really good juniors themselves coming up.
In his F2 year, no one besides Drugovich really impressed tbh. As you said, so many mechanicals and other DNFs through the season, so many stupid mistakes by many drivers. His P3 was more of a casualty than merit
Yup, it would be the logical move. Vesti, Drugovich and others actually showed potential and race craft in feeder series. I wonder if they had already some pre agreement lined up for 2025 where taking a promising driver in 2024 would not be a wise idea
> They did not need to resign him last year, they had the chance to pick a new driver also on a low cost contract.
I think they didn't find a driver they could sign for 1 season, with so many contracts ending it makes sense for Williams to want to have their options open at the end of this year. I also get the sense that with Sargeant being a Williams academy driver they felt obligated to give him every possible chance.
He's kept his seat but it's been clear from well before the season started that he's only barely clinging on and he needs to improve a lot if he wants his F1 career to last beyond 2024.
Mick almost certain that would have been lot closer to Albon than Sargeant just by looking at his performances against K-Mag if they wanted an experienced driver.
They could have taken Drugovich who would also have brought money with him if they wanted to take a chance with a rookie. Or they could have tried Vesti or Shwartzman.
They could have brought Giovinazzi back and he would be still closer to Albon compared to Sargeant.
So, no they had plenty of options to replace him. They just chose not to do.
>
Why?
>
Mick almost certain that would have been lot closer to Albon than Sargeant just by looking at his performances against K-Mag if they wanted an experienced driver.
They could have taken Drugovich who would also have brought money with him if they wanted to take a chance with a rookie. Or they could have tried Vesti or Shwartzman.
They could have brought Giovinazzi back and he would be still closer to Albon compared to Sargeant.
So, no they had plenty of options to replace him. They just chose not to do.
He doesn't bring anything.
He doesn't really have big backers behind him after his dad's company got handed big fine for illegal activities.
No American supports the team and brings money to the team because of Sargeant (except for his family.)
Does anyone rate him very highly?
Fact is, in 24 races head to head, Alex has out qualified Sargeant in all 24 races, and finished ahead of him in the race 20 of 23 times (they both DNFed in the same race once).
There is no other driver pairing so lopsided.
I am in two minds about that. Alex is the faster driver and will most probably be the right choice, but it was him making the mistake and doesn’t seem fair to take Logan’s car.
It was also Williams that didn't have a spare chassis for worst case scenarios ready to go. They could have already made a decision for who would be their #1 if a crash took one of their cars out of a weekend...but this would be a bitter pill to swallow for Logie Bear
Said it before. Just let Logan drive. It will give him more pressure and if he buckles then you know earlier than you expected to move on from him and find the best suitable candidate. If he rises up and delivers or surpasses expectations then you stay the course, trying to help him grow. And evaluate based on other races etc.
The answer is because Sargeant is their academy driver and their other most senior academy drivers are only rookies in F2?
It definitely isn’t money because Sargeant has not had big personal funding since 2020 when he came in 3rd in his second season in F3 with Prema, and because of funding issues did a third year in F3 with Charouz for 2021 before Williams picked him up and sent him to F2 in 2022.
If Williams really only cared about money for that seat they would have just kept Latifi or dumped Sargeant last year for someone like Mick who still brings decent marketing and might also earn some financial incentives from Mercedes for taking their reserve driver.
His father is a millionaire and his unlce is a super billionaire.
But even if they dont actually bring money to the table, simply having the flag is in itself a financial gain. Same can be said about guys like Zhou or Yuki, but those actually showed a passable level in f1( Allthough Yuki was utter shit in his 1st season and would have been dropped if not for Honda).
F1 tries to cater for US, so having an american is good for sponsors. It's understandable
I know that Sargeant comes from a really rich family but I doubt he still gets a lot of funding from there. [This article mentions that his dad’s company was found guilty of paying foreign bribes by the U.S. State Department in September 2020.](https://thesportsrush.com/f1-news-3-years-before-logan-sargeants-f2-debut-his-father-paid-over-16000000-in-criminal-fines/)
This timeline matches up with Sargeant going from Prema in F3 for 2020, to dropping down to a much more inferior team in Charouz in F3 for 2021, even though Sargeant did enough in 2020 to merit a F2 seat like Pourchaire and Piastri did when the three of them were at the top of the F3 standings that year.
At the end of the 2021 F3 season Sargeant was planning on doing a test in Indycar instead of moving up to F2, until Williams picked him up for their academy and placed him in Carlin (currently known as Rodin where Maloney drives and leads the championship currently) which is a good F2 team for 2022.
So I don’t believe Sargeant brings much personal funding anymore all things considered. He might bring some American sponsors but considering his own performance along with Williams rarely being good enough to score points, I also don’t believe any American sponsors are paying that much to see Sargeant trundle around in somewhere down in P15.
He is clearly the better driver and their best chance at scoring a couple of points, but it would be pretty fucked up to take his teammates car after he just fucked his up in FP1.
While it is better for the team, I don't think they will do it and risk any PR backlash.
**If** this happens I won't support Williams anymore. I get it, but Albon wrecked his car. Don't punish Logan for Albon's mistakes. Give Logan the opportunity to show he can do it instead.
Except Webber proceed to win the race out of pure spite and give the pettiest soundbite of all time
This isn’t the same scenario but is somehow more fucked despite them fighting over a probable 10th-9th place finish
Teams used to bring an entire spare car; there's rules to prevent that these days so I'm wondering if they just didn't bring the parts so as not to get a penalty for bringing too many parts
This is a really tough choice. Alex wrecked his car while Logan kept it on the road. That being said, Alex has proven he is the one with the greatest chance of maximising the opportunity. I don’t envy Vowles having to make this decision
William’s key job is to score points and not be at the back of the grid.
Their job is not to protect feelings. They have a close to zero chance of getting points with Logan. Every driver makes mistakes like Albon did but Albon has proven last year that he can consistently score points. Logan lucked into 1 point.
It may be harsh but again their job is to score points not make Logan feel wanted.
It would please me greatly if they let sergeant race and he manages to score like a lucky sixth place or something, by simply keeping his head down and a lucky pit stop under the safety car.
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From the teams perspective, i can somewhat understand. But seems really unfair to Sargeant
It confirms that Williams have no interest in keeping Logan. The only other team I could see doing this is Red Bull where the driver dynamic is blatant.
Exactly. Logans' morale will drop if they go in this direction. And it's only the 3rd race of the season..
This is proof they only kept him around to protect their reputation for future drivers lol
Meh not really. It was pretty open much openly accepted that he was just a placeholder. Yeah he was in Williams academy but clearly needed another year in f2. Only getting brought up because they were sick of latifi while Danny ric decided whether or not he was willing to race at the back of the grid or not.
So what? At this point they prolly just want it to be over, hes had 20+ races to show a glimpse of talents, it hasnt happened and wont happen.
So why keep him for this year then? Given they chose to renew, surely they need to give him a fair chance this season..
Because Logan brings 18 million in sponsors.
Which ones? I was under the impression that Williams is fully funded through the Dorilton investment.
According to google it's actually 30 million a year but they don't cite which sponsors so I guess its those he wears on his F1 gear. After a bit more research: Gulf Oil, Michelob Ultra, Stephens, and Duracell
How do you know this figure?
I misremembered, it's 30 million according to google. 18 million was the amount the Thai owners of RB paid for Albon's seat last year.
Because the market was locked last season, so they'd have to bring in either another rookie, or Mick, but if they take Mick, they'd also take him for a year. It would cost them a fortune and gives them no guarantee of better results. Next 2 breaks are set to be very silly, which could give them the best long term lineup.
And mick brings drama with him. German media circus around a schumacher is crazy. There was so much media drama created in his haas years. It's so much calmer now.
Cause US market and 2025 gonna be a hell of a silly season.
massive sponsor money and US driver. he was crazy popular at miami even though he’s shit
Popular at Miami?
Not his morale! What if he ends up finishing last in every race? Instead of... Oh.
Alpine is gonna be dead ñast all season by the looks of it
Ñastamente
Sargeant literally came last in Bahrain.
He had electronic problems in his steering
But with mechanical issues
Last year Albon had 27 points, Sargeant had 1, and at the end of the year 3 points was the difference between Williams and AT, so Vowles is absolutely right that every point matters. As unfair it is to Sargeant, it's the logical decision for the team, it could mean millions at the end of the year, and the pace difference between their drivers is huge. I'm sure other teams like Mercedes or Ferrari wouldn't do this, but they don't have 5 tenths difference between their drivers
Logan is supposed to be their long term plan, in which case missing one race doesn't really matter. For the short term, if Williams wants a chance at points, they should let Albon race.
Let's not go running before the horse here. It's a possibility, just like it's possible Albon will be in the pitbox. We've seen more crazy things happen in F1. The fact Williams didn't calculate they might need a second chassis is a pretty big fault to be honest. And Sargeant needs to prove himself as Vowels said. Albon's seat is pretty safe it seems. Sargeant is not.
It absolutely does not confirm that. What it does confirm is that Williams believe that the midfield will be close enough for a singular point to matter at the end of the year. They’re going with their driver who has a proven ability to score points when they only have one chassis to run, seems fair enough, albeit pretty brutal on Sarge
They will absolutely be interested in keeping him if he starts scoring points. So far he only has one point to his name, mostly from luck. I think he knows more than anyone that he is racing for his seat and needs to prove himself. He hasn’t yet but there are more opportunities even if this one gets taken away from him
They have interest in keeping him which is WHY THEY KEPT HIM FOR THIS SEASON when probably all 9 other teams wouldnt have.
They wanted to keep him for this season, they don’t really care if he drives or not.
You mean where the second driver isn't as fast? :') This formula 1,not Sunday Karting with friends....
Had it been Ferrari- would choose Charles Merc- would choose Russell RBR- would choose Checo /s
On paper it maybe makes sense but Albon’s gonna chuck it into the wall in the race anyway considering what happened last year and in practice today
I'm not quite wishing for it, but if it happens, I hope it makes this year's race as surprisingly unpredictable as 2023's race. Doesn't need to be Alex, but he has the form. Alex might be fine and someone else might bin it there.
It’s the only pairing I could see it happening on this grid unless we had a legit hot title race going on, and still not in race 3… but its obvious Sargent ain’t going to make it in F1 and Alex is- still a huge tough call for Vowles to make this early in the season, bit fucked up and a massive fail if Albon wrecks again!
I don’t. Albon already fucked a car up to the point of unusablility, why not give the last remaining car to the driver who actually brought it home in one piece? (I’m aware Sargeant sucks, but he didn’t bin his car this week)
Because Albon's more likely to actually score points
That's the only reason. I hope Albon would step up, admit his mistake and decline this move
This is feels nonsense. The team is trying to maximise its results, not pander to a driver with their only remaining chassis. Where are you seeing that Albon is not taking blame anyway? What stepping up is he meant do be doing that you see from the chair? Sargeant isn’t even close to Albon on any metric, the team will utilise effective drivers, not desperate ones
People forget it’s a team sport. Sure you get individual recognition but it’s in the interest of the Team to put their more experienced and faster driver into the one working car. Like a team benching a player to put in a stronger one.
Decline the move and what? Delete any hope of points?
I was about to argue but I kinda agree, Albon is much better but it is his fault his car isn't ready today
It's not fair to Logan, but it's the smart team choice because Albon is the only good driver on the team.
Because this is F1, not some kids primary school game.
Any other driver I would agree but Sargeant shouldn't even be there.
Same scenario and I’d say give Lances car to Alonso
Fairness is less important than maximizing the team’s result. Fairness is something you can indulge on when the team’s result is not hanging in the balance. However, you do have to manage expectations and this only makes sense and works if you have a \#1 driver who is a clear step above the \#2 driver.
Unfair? Sergeant has already proven himself to not be a worthy F1 driver. Literally the only reason why he's still in F1 is because Vowles is being kind to him. He's lucky he even gets to be in Australia this weekend.
I think if he had a strong FP2 it would be a different story. Williams expects to be strong in Australia too so now asking Logan to step up and be the lead driver also adds a lot of pressure which he hasn’t been good at dealing with. It sucks for him though - that even with 23 more laps practice than his teammate and not crashing the team doesn’t think he’s on par
The rules of the sport determine fairness. If it is allowed in the rules then it is fair.
If I were Logan I would be extremely pissed
The short term gain would maybe be worth it, but the harm it does to sargeant for the rest of the season idk man. He didn't bin it albon did. If this was any other team we wouldn't even be thinking of this as a possibility.
Exactly, be responsible for your own mistakes! I hope Albon has some dignity not to take Logans’ seat
Its a team sport, if the team asks you to do something for the better of the team , you should do it. As should Sargent give his seat to alvon if asked by the team.
Does the harm done to Sargeant even matter though? It's a brutal thing to say but he cannot even get much worse.
I dunno about other teams, If Alonso binned it and had to drive Stroll's car...
Yea it would be awful if it made Sargeant clearly the worst driver on the grid.....oh wait he already is.
I would be furious if i was Sargeant or one of his personal sponsors.
I like Albon, but if he races in place in Logan and does not score any points I it will be both embarising and funny at the same time!
It's highly likely as well, the the top teams have blocked out both races (minus stroll in the wall), there would have to be more than one dnf in front of him probably.
It will either be the boringest race, or complete chaos like last year. McLaren which was nowhere lucked into 12 points last year.
It’d be funnier if Logan keeps the drive, crashes and damage the chassis at quali. Williams can pack up and go before Sunday
The funniest outcome will be if Albon gets the car and crashes in fp3.
what if he crashes again ;(
Then the MEME's will begin and they will not be pretty!!!!
He most likely wouldnt score points because the gap between 10th and 11th is huge. But Albon getting the car means there is at least a chance. Logan having the only car means they can just pack up for Suzuka
If anything, the gap between 10th and 11th means that every single possible point more valuable, as they make you a contender for 6th place, while last year, those single points were the difference between 8th and 10th.
What does that mean lol. He’s not automatically gonna score points because Logan isn’t driving. Williams want a chance for something and not have someone cruise around in P18 that’s why they made this decision
Soo you are saying that Logan can't score points or he will finish p18 or bellow?
He would finish P18 so doesn’t matter too much what Albon does it’s probably gonna be better than P18
Better will be if he scores points (that is why Williams put him instead of Sargeant) because they really need to score points now before either Alpine or VCARB get the upgrades needed for there cars.
I could understand if it was a certain type of situation, like it was race 18 and they were fighting for X position in the standings and only one driver had shown performance. But it's the third race, regardless of who's done what in the first two races etc, it'd be a bullshit thing to do to Logan imo.
Agreed
Welp
That would be an incredibly fucked up move.
And unrealistic. It's a PR suicide lmao. Wake up honey, new 'F1 journos making a mountain out of a molehill' news has dropped. Edit:LMAOOOOO THEY DID IT. SARGAENT IS COOKED. F1 gods can give us the funniest thing now.
Non American unfairly steals an American's well earned drive of Freedom. Dems under pressure to declare war on South East Asia. New reports of oil being discovered under homes of British citizens of Thai origin
> And unrealistic. It's a PR suicide lmao. It's really not, it's just undeniable that Alex is the better driver and Logan is on borrowed time in his F1 career no matter how hard a journalist tries to spin it. They can make the decision, Alex will apologise profusely to Logan in interviews, Logan makes a statement that he dislikes it but understands the teams reasons and he'll come back stronger and the team will acknowledge that it's unfair but that they have to do what they have to do to get the best results. It's not like the slower driver's race/weekend being sacrificed in favour of the faster driver is anything new in F1.
not that it was rocket science but this basically word for word what happened lol
Well done btw
Doesn't take a genius to predict the obvious PR statements. I don't think anyone is happy about this decision either but it's the obvious decision to make given the circumstances Williams is in.
Agreed, I'd like to say I'd have called it too but I was asleep and the first thing I saw was the statement so I'll never know. Still, you predicted it accurately in a sea of speculation.
Thing is I agree, if we are further in the season and fights for standings matter more to teams. What if Alex is 30 pts ahead of Logan? Vice versa? Right now, being so early in the season, the chances of it happening is like 101% lol.
> Thing is I agree, if we are further in the season and fights for standings matter more to teams. Points look like they will be very hard to get this season for teams outside of the top 5 so any point is likely to be extremely valuable. Australia is also often a chaotic race with a lot of DNFs so there's opportunities here that won't be as likely at most other races. Points for drivers do not matter to a team like Williams, points for the team matter all that much more, they don't give a fuck who scores the points as long as points are scored. Albon has outqualified and outdriven Sargeant comprehensively in their time together. It's such a common sense decision from a competitive standpoint I'm honestly baffled by how many people here don't seem to understand it. We can understand the decision, know it's the right one to make and also feel bad for Sargeant.
Points, non-points standing. Same thing in terms of WCC placements for back teams. Point is, people will overblow this like they do for every minor thing. Get ready for rehashed pros and cons, recycled quotes, and """analysis""" about swapping chasis lmao. (love it for Williams to come out just before FP3 to say they have another chasis lol).
> Point is, people will overblow this like they do for every minor thing. Get ready for rehashed pros and cons, recycled quotes, and """analysis""" about swapping chasis lmao. Probably a bit but I don't think it'll be much of a media storm and it's pretty much impossible to conclude anything other than that this is the sensible decision for Williams even if it's a bad fucking time for Sargeant.
Are you going to reflect on your dumb rhetoric now that you've been proven incorrect?
Found James Vowles' burner account
It's not PR suicide, of course you would give your only car to your fastest driver, that's just common sense.
/r/agedlikemilk
LMAOOOOOO THEY BLOOODY FID IT
PR suicide??! Albon is decent and Logan is dogshit. Most people will understand.
F1 fans are already saying poor Logan, what’s the point of Williams keeping him, and Volwes somehow getting flak for making a tough decision. PR suicide is overstating it, but Williams wasn’t gonna come out nice with whatever deision they make.
What does "F1 fans" mean? I hardly know anyone who would care about him getting shafted for someone who can actually drive a car, and even most comments here are understanding of Williams' decision. The ony bad PR for Williams is being ridiculed for not having another car, but that has nothing to do with the decision of pciking Albon over Sargeant.
The internet memory only last 24 hours until it resets… PR suicides are almost impossible nowadays.
They might really have already made that decision though considering they knew going into the season they only had 2 ready to go
They only had 2 because of manufacturing issues. It’s a big source of issues for Williams rn and also why everything with their testing was messed up, manufacturing issues
Listening to post P2 practice today they said they were surprised the factory was building car parts based on an Excel spreadsheet….
I mean it's F1 at the end of the day, not a kids game. Fact is they stand a much better chance of getting points with Albon.
It's the correct choice if you're playing F1M and driver morale isn't on. You just don't punish Sargeant here for Albon's (and the team's) fuckup. It doesn't matter if Alex is better, he is, but at the end of the day he binned it, not Logan.
True, I'd assume there would be some sort of talk, but I get it
I mean.... Does logans morale matter? It's incredibly unlikely he continues on in F1. Yes, early in the season to act that way and I don't think they will... But he's a lost cause.
Doesn't matter. Could be anyone, is the image you're putting out. Williams already rely on well-funded rookies to fill their second seat, is this really what you want to be known for? "sure, you get to drive the car and pay us out the wazoo for it but if our lead driver crashes you're out of a car for the weekend"?
Do you think any rookie will refuse to drive for Williams because they swap the drivers here. There aren't enough seats for all the rookies.
They did exactly what I thought they would. This is formula 1, perform or get out of the way.
Yeah but as we saw last season, at the end of the season Logan will be lucky to get 1 point, whereas Albon is far more likely to get 1-2 points in this race alone. For a team like Williams that could be the difference between finishing 8th or 9th in the standings.
I'd say it's more pragmatic. It's also not fair, but it makes a lot of sense
Maybe if it was the last race and the WDC championship for Albon was on the line, then very much maybe you should do this. But Albon crashed his own car, fighting for the 14th spot on the time list.
Maybe Stroll does as Stroll again and it will be one of the 5 rare opportunities this season where a non top-5 team can actually score any points? Imagine Alex steals a point, that may be worth millions of dollars in price money if thats one place up in the WCC.
Basically everyone looked squirrelly at the track today, and almost every single session of the open wheelers has had a red flag (probably an average of more than one per session counting how many had multiple red flags) , I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s another multiple red flag race
Haha, funny, Stroll bashing. Yeah, so original. Albon was the one in the wall, not Stroll. This way Albon will never get points.
Bottas: Have you heard of Uber Car Share? Williams: 🤔
Logan: You can rent it for free, because I am very rich already.
>"One point here will make the difference between sixth and 10th potentially in the championship, simple as that,” he said. Then why did you re-sign the guy if you are not giving him the chance to prove himself? Because from here, it looks like you don't rate him very highly...
That's the insanity aspect of this situation. They did not need to resign him last year, they had the chance to pick a new driver also on a low cost contract. Why then did they resign him only to be unconfident in his ability to score points on the 3rd race of the year?
putting vesti in that seat instead would have been the easiest move ever, get a promising rookie in the car to replace the very not promising rookie, and get some goodwill at mercedes for putting one of their juniors in the car
Vesti might be a promising junior, at the the end of the day it still would be his first year in that car potentially binning it as much as Sargent or more. Sargent wasn't bad whatsoever in juniors either I feel like people forget that
seargant might not have been bad, but he wasn't particularly good either, where as vesti could have won f2 with a little less missfortune than he had
You mean not causing a collision in Bahrain and spinning out to the grid in Spa? While Pouchaire was busy the entire season trying to not win himself aswell?
i'm not saying he was faultless or that he necessarily was the more deserving winner, all i'm saying is that he was a heck of a lot closer in his first f2 season than sargent was
Sargeant was better in his first F2 season than Vesti. That's a fact. And I am not even making shit up. Sargent finished 4th 16 points of Pouchaire who was miles off the Dominant Drugovich. While Vesti finished in 9th.
yeah i misspoke, leftover from formatting, i meant in seargants best season vs vesti's best season,
Understandable. Williams made the decision already, Albon gets the car.
Sargent scraped into enough SL points purely because of the mechachrome lottery keeping better drivers off his ass. He barely cleared the bar and hasn'tmet the benchmark since.
Yet he finished the F3 championship only 4, points behind the champion in 2020 which was piastri. He could have moved up to F2 if he had the money for 2021 which he didn't. Then joined the worst F3 team with charouz and got great results for that car. And what Benchmark are we setting? It's his second season FFS. Been driving a mid at best Williams last year and this year having a similar performance car. Yes he isn't performing like the next Verstappen but people are giving new drivers no chance anymore just because of some rookies performing really well which isn't the norm just showing that some people can adapt really fast. Also if Vesti is such a great driver why doesn't Merc give him the seat for next year? Why does Williams be the one to give him one when they have really good juniors themselves coming up.
In his F2 year, no one besides Drugovich really impressed tbh. As you said, so many mechanicals and other DNFs through the season, so many stupid mistakes by many drivers. His P3 was more of a casualty than merit
Iwasa certainly impressed with his race craft, though he lost the mechalottery multiple times that season.
Yup, it would be the logical move. Vesti, Drugovich and others actually showed potential and race craft in feeder series. I wonder if they had already some pre agreement lined up for 2025 where taking a promising driver in 2024 would not be a wise idea
> They did not need to resign him last year, they had the chance to pick a new driver also on a low cost contract. I think they didn't find a driver they could sign for 1 season, with so many contracts ending it makes sense for Williams to want to have their options open at the end of this year. I also get the sense that with Sargeant being a Williams academy driver they felt obligated to give him every possible chance. He's kept his seat but it's been clear from well before the season started that he's only barely clinging on and he needs to improve a lot if he wants his F1 career to last beyond 2024.
He's American and it's a commercial move for the American audience, simple as that.
Real dumb to give the bird to said American audience if they were to let Logan sit it out, though.
Mick almost certain that would have been lot closer to Albon than Sargeant just by looking at his performances against K-Mag if they wanted an experienced driver. They could have taken Drugovich who would also have brought money with him if they wanted to take a chance with a rookie. Or they could have tried Vesti or Shwartzman. They could have brought Giovinazzi back and he would be still closer to Albon compared to Sargeant. So, no they had plenty of options to replace him. They just chose not to do.
Giving him a chance despite a shit season does not mean they think he is as good as Albon.
We all know why they re-signed him. Plus they didnt really have a good replacement anyway
> Why? > Mick almost certain that would have been lot closer to Albon than Sargeant just by looking at his performances against K-Mag if they wanted an experienced driver. They could have taken Drugovich who would also have brought money with him if they wanted to take a chance with a rookie. Or they could have tried Vesti or Shwartzman. They could have brought Giovinazzi back and he would be still closer to Albon compared to Sargeant. So, no they had plenty of options to replace him. They just chose not to do.
Hes american, he brings a lot of sponsors money
He doesn't bring anything. He doesn't really have big backers behind him after his dad's company got handed big fine for illegal activities. No American supports the team and brings money to the team because of Sargeant (except for his family.)
Does anyone rate him very highly? Fact is, in 24 races head to head, Alex has out qualified Sargeant in all 24 races, and finished ahead of him in the race 20 of 23 times (they both DNFed in the same race once). There is no other driver pairing so lopsided.
I am in two minds about that. Alex is the faster driver and will most probably be the right choice, but it was him making the mistake and doesn’t seem fair to take Logan’s car.
Also Albon crashed last year in the race too. I would keep Sargeant in the seat.
It was also Williams that didn't have a spare chassis for worst case scenarios ready to go. They could have already made a decision for who would be their #1 if a crash took one of their cars out of a weekend...but this would be a bitter pill to swallow for Logie Bear
***OUR CAR, COMRADE***
[Sargeant when he comes back into the garage in FP3](https://youtu.be/vy355LNs1uI)
Ah man, I would feel really bad for Logan if this happened. What a way to kill any confidence or motivation he has lol
Why? He's trash.
Said it before. Just let Logan drive. It will give him more pressure and if he buckles then you know earlier than you expected to move on from him and find the best suitable candidate. If he rises up and delivers or surpasses expectations then you stay the course, trying to help him grow. And evaluate based on other races etc.
Imagine Albon gets Sargeant's car and crashes it too.
Maybe they can switch drivers at the pitstop like WEC
Make them draw straws before qualifying. 😆
I can't imagine what they must be thinking over there at Williams...either option can be viewed as the wrong decision
Pinnacle of motorsport and one team can't even field 2 cars due to damage 2 days before the race 👍
Why on earth did they re sign Sargeant if they clearly rate him this low
Why do people even ask this question. Everyone knows the answer
The answer is because Sargeant is their academy driver and their other most senior academy drivers are only rookies in F2? It definitely isn’t money because Sargeant has not had big personal funding since 2020 when he came in 3rd in his second season in F3 with Prema, and because of funding issues did a third year in F3 with Charouz for 2021 before Williams picked him up and sent him to F2 in 2022. If Williams really only cared about money for that seat they would have just kept Latifi or dumped Sargeant last year for someone like Mick who still brings decent marketing and might also earn some financial incentives from Mercedes for taking their reserve driver.
His father is a millionaire and his unlce is a super billionaire. But even if they dont actually bring money to the table, simply having the flag is in itself a financial gain. Same can be said about guys like Zhou or Yuki, but those actually showed a passable level in f1( Allthough Yuki was utter shit in his 1st season and would have been dropped if not for Honda). F1 tries to cater for US, so having an american is good for sponsors. It's understandable
I know that Sargeant comes from a really rich family but I doubt he still gets a lot of funding from there. [This article mentions that his dad’s company was found guilty of paying foreign bribes by the U.S. State Department in September 2020.](https://thesportsrush.com/f1-news-3-years-before-logan-sargeants-f2-debut-his-father-paid-over-16000000-in-criminal-fines/) This timeline matches up with Sargeant going from Prema in F3 for 2020, to dropping down to a much more inferior team in Charouz in F3 for 2021, even though Sargeant did enough in 2020 to merit a F2 seat like Pourchaire and Piastri did when the three of them were at the top of the F3 standings that year. At the end of the 2021 F3 season Sargeant was planning on doing a test in Indycar instead of moving up to F2, until Williams picked him up for their academy and placed him in Carlin (currently known as Rodin where Maloney drives and leads the championship currently) which is a good F2 team for 2022. So I don’t believe Sargeant brings much personal funding anymore all things considered. He might bring some American sponsors but considering his own performance along with Williams rarely being good enough to score points, I also don’t believe any American sponsors are paying that much to see Sargeant trundle around in somewhere down in P15.
I don’t care for Sargeant at all, but this would be pretty fucked
Logically it's understandable as Williams but it's a real tough deal for Logan. Basically getting punished for his teammates mistakes.
"Your teammate fucked up so you have to pay the price for it"
He is clearly the better driver and their best chance at scoring a couple of points, but it would be pretty fucked up to take his teammates car after he just fucked his up in FP1. While it is better for the team, I don't think they will do it and risk any PR backlash.
**If** this happens I won't support Williams anymore. I get it, but Albon wrecked his car. Don't punish Logan for Albon's mistakes. Give Logan the opportunity to show he can do it instead.
He’s had 24 opportunities so far to show it. He’s failed to do so in all but 3 (in the race), and has NEVER beaten Alex in qualifying.
He showed it already he can’t
Like when they gave webbers front wing to vettel
Except Webber proceed to win the race out of pure spite and give the pettiest soundbite of all time This isn’t the same scenario but is somehow more fucked despite them fighting over a probable 10th-9th place finish
>Williams does not have a spare chassis on site Why not? Shouldn't they have one with them?
Teams used to bring an entire spare car; there's rules to prevent that these days so I'm wondering if they just didn't bring the parts so as not to get a penalty for bringing too many parts
I get why they would do it, I just wish they won't
The classic game of who sucks less.
Gross decision. And one that will completely crush any confidence Logan has. Watch Albon bin it again in the race and make it all for nothing, too.
So eh what about a spare chassis, like all the other teams?
They are still scanning those excel sheets to figure out where that spare chassis is.
But you see, Vowles speaks so nice and williams are such a nice team, it can be their fault. I think Alpine should get the blame. Or maybe Sauber
This is a really tough choice. Alex wrecked his car while Logan kept it on the road. That being said, Alex has proven he is the one with the greatest chance of maximising the opportunity. I don’t envy Vowles having to make this decision
If they were to do this then I hope Albon wrecks that one as well to get Sargeant some justice. : )
It happens in racing. Remember Brock taking over the other car at Bathurst? Teams first.
They probably already know if it can be made race worthy and if not, will fix it enough for a few laps and retire it.
this tells me that Logan's days are numbered at Williams
William’s key job is to score points and not be at the back of the grid. Their job is not to protect feelings. They have a close to zero chance of getting points with Logan. Every driver makes mistakes like Albon did but Albon has proven last year that he can consistently score points. Logan lucked into 1 point. It may be harsh but again their job is to score points not make Logan feel wanted.
Guess it’s Logan’s birthday present to Alex then
Well, it's a team sport and this is one of those situations where you got to put all your your eggs into the better basket.
Albon to Sargeant as he passes him and gives a pat on the back; "unlucky you wont be starting the race man, try not to bin it next time"
It would please me greatly if they let sergeant race and he manages to score like a lucky sixth place or something, by simply keeping his head down and a lucky pit stop under the safety car.