Sargeant urged to ‘take deep breath’ to overcome F1 woe

Logan Sargeant has been urged to “take a bit of a deep breath” in order to help him come to terms with what has been a difficult debut season in F1 with Williams so far.

After finishing a reasonable 12th on his grand prix bow in Bahrain, since then it has been a tale of woe for the 22-year-old American.

For qualifying at the next race in Saudi Arabia, Sargeant first had a lap time deleted for exceeding track limits, spun on his second attempt before a mechanical failure curtailed his third. Starting from last on the grid, he finished 16th of the 18 classified.

In Australia, he was involved in a collision with AlphaTauri’s Nyck de Vries in one of the late restarts, followed by a crash in the sprint shootout over the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend that meant he was unable to compete in the sprint race due to the damage sustained to the car.

On home soil in Miami, Sargeant qualified and finished last, and despite an improved qualifying performance in Monaco, he finished the race two laps down and again last of those that saw the chequered flag.

At the most recent race in Spain, Sargeant was involved in another crash, this time in final practice, before repeating his Miami feat of qualifying and finishing last as all 20 cars crossed the line.

Asked by Speedcafe what Williams could do to help Sargeant feel more comfortable in the car, head of vehicle performance Dave Robson said: “He just needs a bit of support.

“He needs to take a bit of a deep breath and realise, frankly, it’s blooming difficult.

“I think it’s difficult for anyone to come into F1 to have to drive a car that is towards the back and push it to its very limits to make any progress. It is even more than people think.

“He still potentially just needs to come to terms with that and not overpush it when that doesn’t reward you.

“It’s just time – it does just take time.”

Following the race at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya, Sargeant declared himself to be as close to the maximum he had felt with the FW45 over one lap, albeit with his qualifying compromised by the FP3 crash in which he hit a wall.

Sargeant is under no illusions, however, what is required as he said: “Everything I’m doing still needs to keep improving, from quali, to race, to everything.”