F1 News: Insider Believes Logan Sargeant's Williams "Future Was Decided"
Former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher believes that a decision has already been made on Logan Sargeant's future with the Williams team.
The American driver signed with the British team for his F1 rookie season on a one-year contract which is due to expire at the end of the 2023 season. There has been a huge amount of speculation over whether Sargeant will continue with Williams through 2024.
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He is one of the only four drivers to have zero points in the standings, including fired Nyck de Vries, Liam Lawson who has just had his debut and Daniel Ricciardo who has only taken part in two race. Unfortunately, Sargeant's Dutch GP performance can't have helped his case either, he got through to Q3 for the first time in his Formula One career only to crash. After starting from tenth position on the grid, he ultimately was forced to retire from the race in Zandvoort after crashing again.
It was easy to see how upset the driver was after his crash during the hectic race leading many to believe that he knew what this would mean for his future.
New Williams team principal James Vowles spoke about Sargeant ahead of the weekend explaining:
“It’s ultimately… Formula 1 is the pinnacle of motorsport. It’s a fierce competition. It’s a meritocracy. You have to earn your place there.
“He has to keep developing and moving forward. It needs improvements on consistency, which I’ve said through the season. The gap to Alex needs to remain the same and shrink over time. If we take a step back, we’ve put Logan in a situation where he came straight out of F2, had a day and a half of testing… Good luck, you’re a Formula 1 driver."
During his post-race round-up for Sky Sports F1, Schumacher reported on his gut feeling on the situation. He commented:
"When we interviewed team boss Vowles during the race weekend, I thought he was genuinely happy with Sargeant.
"When Sargeant was so broken after the race, I had the impression that there had already been a meeting where his future was decided, and then to his detriment. But that's just a feeling."