A 22-0 whitewash in qualifying, and 27-1 points split are the bare numbers behind Sargeant’s first season relative to team-mate Alex Albon. Sargeant was comprehensively overshadowed after being promoted earlier than expected when other options to replace Nicholas Latifi fell through.
Looking purely at results, which is what F1 is all about, Williams could have been expected to jettison the 22-year-old Floridian, who has seen flashes of promise hampered by a persistent lack of consistency.
But while extending his stay may be a pragmatic choice influenced by several factors, Vowles has put his money where his mouth is by continuing to back a driver brought in by his predecessor Jost Capito, not just through public support but by giving him a second chance.
His thinking stems from data that suggests Sargeant has been respectably close in raw potential to Albon, who has been hailed as one of the standout drivers of 2023. Sargeant’s seventh place in qualifying at Las Vegas shows what he can do if he gets his act together. He was also within a tenth of Albon at the extremely tricky Losail circuit in Qatar, with the added difficulty of it being a sprint weekend.
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But those outliers came amid a series of high-profile crashes and other slip-ups that compromised his qualifying position and increased pressure on his seat. Seeing both his Abu Dhabi Q1 laps deleted for crossing track limits, which would have been good enough for Q2, was a telling end to his rookie campaign.
But the old adage is that it is easier to make a quick driver more consistent than it is to make a slow and steady driver fast. Williams hopes that armed with a year of experience Sargeant’s 2024 campaign will build on the knowledge he has gathered, having been urged to control the risks he takes rather than overdrive the car trying to keep up with Albon.
Speaking to Autosport after his qualifying breakthrough in Las Vegas, Vowles said: “The worst thing you can do is go too far and overdrive the car. Now you don’t know where the limit is and you don’t know where to come back to either.
Photo by: Williams
Sargeant’s second chance was announced by Williams on Friday
“He’s doing an incredible job. It’s hard probably to explain to the world how good a job he is doing and the growth of it.
“But when you come into the sport as a rookie, where you’ve done a few 100 kilometres of testing, it’s really…
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