Williams driver Logan Sargeant admits his crash in the opening practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix was due to a “silly” error.
Sargeant ran wide through the uphill left-hander of the Dunlop Curve mid-way through first practice, running onto the grass and spinning into the barrier.
The Williams driver missed the second practice session due to the damage sustained in the accident. However this proved not to be too great a disadvantage as his rivals did almost no representative running was completed in the damp second session.
Sargeant admitted that his accident was not a result of him pushing too hard, but that he lost track of where his car was positioned on the road.
“I just put the car in a place I didn’t realise I was at,” Sargeant told the official F1 channel. “It’s a bit of a silly error, to be honest – one that I shouldn’t be making, especially in FP1.”
He said the crash was different to the one he had at the same track last year during qualifying.
“But fortunately, it wasn’t like the mistake last year. It wasn’t an over-pushing thing, but nevertheless still left the team with some damage. But fortunately got away better than it could have been.”
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Williams team principal James Vowles confirmed Sargeant’s chassis was not damaged in the accident. However it leaves the team facing its second major repair job in two rounds, following Alexander Albon’s crash in practice in Melbourne.
That crash resulted in Sargeant being asked by the team to sit out the last race. He insisted his confidence “definitely wasn’t knocked at all” by the team’s decision.
“If anything, I came into this round after a week off feeling more fresh and ready to go than ever,” he said. “So no, no confidence lost.
“I wanted to kick myself a little bit after today, but, nothing to do with that. Just a visual error that I’ll move forward on from tomorrow.”
Vowles said that Sargeant’s error was a “frustrating” one, due to the fact that his driver had not been on the limit when the accident occurred.
“What you saw here wasn’t a driver making a mistake because I think they were pushing to the limit,” Vowles said. “It’s a very different type of mistake, a frustrating one by all accounts, because it wasn’t on the limit of what the car could do.
“There was far more turning potential in there. He just didn’t know where the car…
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