Williams’ Logan Sargeant wants to be more consistent during his second Formula 1 season, stating his desire to “put everything together” across each grand prix weekend.
In 2023, his rookie season, Sargeant achieved a single-point finish with 10th at the United States GP and was out-qualified by team-mate Alex Albon at every single round.
The American showed flashes of pace in singular moments, which were often betrayed by a mistake or misstep shortly afterwards.
Sargeant has been outspoken with his learnings during his rookie season, recently noting how “appreciating the level of effort” required to compete was one of his biggest takeaways from the 2023 campaign and he has reiterated that stance once again.
“I think the biggest challenge is just putting it together every single weekend,” he told Autosport.
“Throughout an F1 weekend, there’s so many variables and so many operational things to get right.
“It’s just really hard to piece it together perfectly throughout an entire weekend. And I think that’s the biggest thing.
“But experience helps just sort of naturally bring that together.
“I think that’s the thing that’s definitely held me back at times and something I’m still trying to get on top of.”
Williams’ progress in 2023 saw the team elevate themselves to seventh in the standings, with Alex Albon scoring 27 points across the 22-round season.
But heading into a 2024 season where Williams bid to make more progress, Sargeant sees points as “just added bonuses” as he endeavours to extract the maximum.
“Whether I score a point or not, I want to have good clean weekends where I put everything together,” he added. And if that means we score points then amazing.
“If that means we don’t, then it is what it is. But at least if I know that I was able to get everything out of it. That’s all I really am looking for.”
With limited testing time, Williams adopted a season-long approach to Sargeant’s F1 education and didn’t confirm his 2024 seat until racing had concluded.
Team Principal James Vowles hinted before the decision was made that he wanted to look at Sargeant’s development across the season before confirming the American’s seat and Sargeant spoke of the big gap between F1 and F2 being a major part of that development journey.
“F2 is a great series that has great drivers, but I think the gap between the cars is probably a bit too big for what it should be,” Sargeant explained.
“There are just so many more fine details in F1, and there’s just so many more things that add into performance than just getting in the car and driving like you do in F2.
“There’s just so many more things that add into performance than just getting in the car and driving like you do in F2.
“I feel like that’s the bit you miss. In F2 you just get in and drive, whereas in F1, there’s so many things that need to come together before you’ll be quick.
“And that’s a thing F2 misses for sure. And then yeah, the cars, just in my opinion, are not quite quick enough.”
Having to overcome F2’s deficits to F1 in 2023 clearly had an impact on Sargeant, but after suggesting he’d started “to crack the code” in the latter half of last year it looks like a step can be made in 2024 if he achieves his oft-cited goal of consistency.
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