Logan Sargeant has revealed that Williams compromised his strategy in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to prevent AlphaTauri’s Daniel Ricciardo from scoring points.
Williams entered the final round of the campaign only seven points ahead of AlphaTauri, who had outscored its rivals by 11 points over the previous four rounds.
While Yuki Tsunoda secured a career-best sixth in qualifying, team-mate Ricciardo struggled and wound up one place behind the leading Williams of Alex Albon in 15th.
Meanwhile, Sargeant had endured a difficult Saturday that saw him fail to post a lap time as he had both of his Q1 efforts deleted for exceeding track limits on the exit of Turn 1.
Williams lacked the pace to challenge, but AlphaTauri fell short of scoring the points total it required to seize seventh, thanks partly to Sargeant holding up Ricciardo.
Reflecting on the final outing of his rookie Formula 1 season, Sargeant, who crossed the line in 16th position, said: “More eventful than a lot of other races this year.
“Unfortunate to have Alex not get a great start and I was boxed in behind him and obviously I didn’t want to take too much risk with him there. So we both ended up at the back after the first lap which put us off to a bad start.
“But once we got through that we didn’t quite have the pace we needed today to push forward.
“But I was really proud of the defence I put up against Danny on much older tyres and able to cost him seconds in the race and miss out on points because of that, so I was happy with that.
“Happy with the late charge at the end on fresh tyres, just putting in quali lap after quali lap and putting in some nice overtakes. So I don’t think it was another bad day from my side.”
Sargeant divulged that Williams’ decision to run an extended 26-lap middle stint originated from the team’s desire to delay Ricciardo’s progress through the order.
The experienced Australia would eventually miss out by one spot and believed with an additional lap he could have overcome the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll for 10th place.
“We didn’t quite optimise the strategy on purpose to make sure I could defend against Danny and try and hold him back as long as I could,” Sargeant disclosed. “That cost us in the race but that wasn’t the point of today, the point was to try and hold them back.
“I’m happy how I drove, happy how I drove yesterday and it’s been a strong end to the season for me.”
Although neither Williams driver was able to score points, Yuki Tsunoda dropped back from sixth on the starting grid to ninth, while Ricciardo failed to add to AlphaTauri’s tally.
That meant Williams resisted the growing threat from Red Bull’s second string to hold onto seventh place in the Constructors’ Championship by only three points.
Sargeant said that the side’s best placing since 2017 “means a lot to me” but admits that Albon, who scored all but one of the team’s points, deserved most of the credit.
“I did the best I could to make sure we held that today,” Sargeant added. “Alex has done a phenomenal job all year, and he’s majorly to thank for that.
“With the progress I’ve been making through the year, it’s been really nice for me to see. Hopefully I can contribute more in the future.”
While AlphaTauri has continued to bring new parts until the end of the season, Williams diverted attention to its 2024 car after introducing one upgrade package in June.
Sargeant is optimistic that the team’s decision to prioritise next year’s challenger over this season’s Constructors’ battle will see it take another sizeable step forward.
“Obviously the team’s done great with the car this year,” the American continued.
“I think it speaks even more volumes, the fact we only brought one upgrade to the car the whole season, and to do what we did was strong and we can be proud of that.
“Hopefully the car will be another step forward next year.”
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