After Alexander Albon suffered a terrible wreck in the first practice session of the Australian Grand Prix weekend, Williams had a difficult decision to make.
The team had only two chassis with them, and Albon had just all but destroyed one of them. The result meant that there could only be one car for the rest of the weekend.
Had it been Logan Sargeant, it would have been a fairly easy decision. But Albon is the team’s star driver scoring 26 of the team’s 27 points last year.
From a business perspective, the decision was elementary. Sargeant could drive well and finish 12th-14th in the race, a good result for him. But Albon, in that scenario, probably finishes in points, in a year where points are looking extremely hard to come by.
But from a race team management perspective, it was a very bitter pill to swallow. Team principal James Vowles has been adamant that this has been his toughest decision as the head of the team so far.
It should be obvious, however, that he made the wrong decision.
Albon wrecked out of practice. Albon made the mistake, and he should pay the price.
What this will do long term is damage Sargeant’s confidence. Perhaps the last thing the team should be doing after having already committed to another season’s worth of investment in the American driver. Sugarcoat it all you like, but the team basically just sat him down and told him they thought he would be worse than a guy who just crashed out of the weekend.
And now, Sargeant has to prepare for 21 more weekends with this team that has no faith in him. I personally argued last year that Sargeant hadn’t proven worthy of another season, especially after the strong debuts of Liam Lawson and Oscar Piastri last year. But now that Williams has committed, they can’t just scurry off on it.
What’s more, there is still a race to happen. Notice how the headline above reads? There is still a big old question mark next to “short-term gain.” Heck, Albon could wreck again and embarrass himself and the team even further.
There was a tremendous amount of social media reaction. Many American fans pointed out the ridiculousness of this fiasco coming less than two months after FOM openly stated that Andretti Global would not bring any value to the grid.
It’s not really a warranted comparison, but at the same time, F1 brought it onto themselves for making the ridiculous claim that Andretti (or any 11th team without a new OEM)…
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