Williams F1 boss James Vowles said Logan Sargeant “reached the limit” of his capabilities at the team, prompting a mid-season switch for rookie Franco Colapinto.
The writing was seemingly on the wall for Sargeant when an unforced era saw him cause significant damage to his FW46 Williams machine during the final practice session of the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.
With extensive repairs underway by the Williams mechanics, the rumour mill began turning and in due course, Colapinto was announced on Tuesday as Alex Albon’s team-mate for the rest of the 2024 F1 campaign.
However, Vowles told select media including Motorsport Week on Friday that the crash wasn’t the deciding factor in Sargeant’s dismissal, more his pace deficit to Albon in race situations.
“So the reason now is straightforward,” Vowels said.
“We’ve had enough experience under our belt to know that he’s reached the limit of what he’s able to achieve. And in fact, it’s almost unfair on him furthermore, continuing to 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. And more so than that, the relationship can only become more and more difficult across the last nine races towards the end of the year because he knows what his future holds, which is not to be in F1 anymore.
“And actually a clean break at that stage feels like the correct decision for all parties. It feels like it’s fair to Logan. He won’t feel that way today, but I hope he reflects on it in the future and it is fair towards him in that regard.
“And it wasn’t, just to be very clear for everyone, it’s not just based on an accident. It was based on in the race he had all of the parts that Alex had available to him, but the performance wasn’t there.”
“Changing also between a back-to-back race is terrible.It really is an awful thing to do, which hopefully shows you where we are in this.
Moreover, Sargeant’s second bite of the F1 cherry came about after he came to a tenth off of Albon’s pace at the end of his rookie campaign in 2023.
A step up was needed for Sargeant to continue further, but Vowles believes that hasn’t materialised in 2024.
“Logan at the end of last year was starting to get within a tenth of Alex, and starting to be close, and it was good to see his progression.
“And if that progression continued, we would have a driver, I think, in a very strong place this year. And it didn’t feel like the right point to cut ties and sever ties as a result of it.”
Vowles didn’t take the decision to swap out Sargeant for Colapinto mid-season lightly, admitting that is a choice no Team Boss wants to make.
“Well, if you speak to every [Team Princiapl] up and down the pit lane, no one wants to change a driver mid-season,” said Vowles.
“It’s horrible. It is incredibly tough on the driver, it is tough on the team, it is disruptive, to say the least.”
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