Logan Sargeant sends Williams message after fellow F1 rookie ruthlessly dropped

In a week when F1 showed its brutal side once again, Williams rookie Logan Sargeant is grateful for the patience shown by his team. The Williams prospect is yet to score a point this season, but both he and his car are improving and he has his first top-10 finish in his sights before the summer break.

The 22-year-old American is the last remaining driver on the grid with no points this season after Nyck de Vries was ruthlessly fired by AlphaTauri – Red Bull’s sister team – with popular Australian veteran Daniel Ricciardo taking his race seat. While De Vries fell victim to the heavy hand of Red Bull’s senior advisor Helmut Marko, Williams has kept faith with Sargeant as he gets up to speed in F1.

Of course, after finishing bottom of last season’s constructors’ championship with just eight points, the expectation level at Williams is not quite the same as De Vries faced at Alpha Tauri and the Red Bull setup. But Sargeant delivered a season-best 11th-place finish at the British Grand Prix on Sunday and he is thankful for the way his team has handled his debut year.

“For me being a rookie, just to have the team’s support throughout what has been a tough few races before these previous couple of good ones is really nice,” Sargeant told Racer. “Just to know they have my back, to keep working with me, trying to help me, and since we brought the updates to the car it’s felt really good.

“Especially in Silverstone, I felt low fuel and high fuel, no matter what we did, every time we went on the track it was in a good place. As a driver that just brings confidence – you can go and push it to the limit. It’s nice to see our pace is getting better and better and we have a car that we can really fight and compete for points with.”

Williams has found significant gains in performance in recent weeks, with Alex Albon picking up four points for his eight-place finish at Silverstone, lifting the team to seventh in the constructor standings as the summer break nears.

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Next on the calendar is a trip to the Hungaroring near Budapest – a notoriously difficult track for overtaking – on July 23, but a week later F1 moves to Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium for the final race before the break and Sargeant believes the high-speed circuit could suit Williams’ car.

“I’m still really excited, I’m super-motivated going into every single race weekend,” he added. “Away from the track we’re still very busy and I do feel tired quite often, but that adrenaline gets you through the weekend. I’m really looking forward to the next two. I think Spa looks pretty appetizing so we’ll see what we can do there. Plenty of energy going into the race weekends and ready to keep improving.”

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