Rookie Logan Sargeant’s maiden Formula 1 campaign went from bad to worse at the Japanese Grand Prix last weekend, where the American was slapped with several penalties by the FIA.
With Sargeant still needing a contract for 2024, the Williams driver certainly isn’t helping his chances of being on the grid next season, by continuing to make costly errors.
Sargeant failed to set a single lap-time in qualifying at Suzuka, after having a huge shunt at the final corner as he came to the end of his first hot lap in Q1.
The American got on the power too early out of the penultimate corner, which unsettled his FW45.
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Sargeant’s car snapped on him which resulted in him trying to turn out of it, sending him off the circuit and into the wall.
His crash destroyed his car, with the cameras having panned to several distraught Williams mechanics.
A long night was ahead of Williams ahead of the race, with Sargeant requiring a new survival cell.
Whilst a new survival cell can be fitted, a completely new chassis is against the rules, as this would result in effectively a ‘third car’ being introduced.
The FIA’s technical delegate Jo Bauer was unhappy with how much work Williams had done to the spare chassis ahead of parc ferme concluding, to the extent that it was as if the outfit had three cars.
As a result, Williams’ repairs were referred to the stewards, who agreed with Bauer that the rules had been breached.
This is where it became complicated ahead of the race, as the stewards couldn’t slap Sargeant with a pit-lane start, due to the fact he was already set to start from there following the repair job.
Instead, the 22-year-old was given a 10-second time penalty, but even that wasn’t the end of his dramas with the stewards.
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Sargeant received a further five-second time penalty for hitting Valtteri Bottas, something the American recognised as his error.
The collision ended up resulting in Williams retiring Sargeant’s car, bringing a dreadful weekend to a close.
“The second I touched the brake in Turn 11, I was locked. I thought [Bottas] would have seen it and gone inside, because I was never going to make the corner. But once he went to the outside, there was nothing I could do to avoid it… It’s my fault,” Sargeant said.