James Vowles, Williams Formula 1 boss, believes Logan Sargeant’s performance does not merit a seat on the team.
He maintains that the American talent had “reached the limit” of his talent and is unable to improve the performance.
The Williams team principal decided to replace the American with Franco Colapinto for remainder of the races. Despite Zandvoort crash, he reasoned that his overall performance led to the decision.
Vowles explained that Sargeant had progressed during 2023 season. The driver managed to get closer to Alex Albon wrt pace despite multiple crashes. He maintains that it warranted a seat on the team in 2024.
However, Sargeant failed to impress with an over-all improvement in 2024 while giving his “100%”. The management decided to replace him with Franco after 15 races and 9 more to go.
“If you speak to every TP up and down the pit lane, no one wants to change a driver mid-season, it’s horrible,” Vowles said.
“It is incredibly tough on the driver, it is tough on the team, it is disruptive. So why change it now?
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“The cleanest point to have done it would have been at the beginning of the year. But Logan at the end of last year was starting to get within a tenth of Alex and starting to be close.
“It was good to see his progression and if that progression continued we would have the driver I think in a very strong place this year. It didn’t feel like the right point to cut ties and sever ties as a result of it.
“So the reason now is straightforward, we’ve had enough experience 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 that.
“Look at his face when he gets out of the car, he’s given you everything he possibly can and it’s not enough.
“He absolutely never from a human perspective did anything but give me 100% of what he was able to do.
“But the realisation of where he is on his limits now is very clear, it’s clear to everyone.”
Vowles thinks that the partnership had run its natural time. He think “a clean break at that stage feels like the correct decision for all parties. It feels like it’s fair to Logan”.
