Williams' Logan Sargeant WITHDRAWS from Azerbaijan Sprint
Williams’ Logan Sargeant WITHDRAWS from Azerbaijan Sprint after the American crashed during qualifying as he appears to blame the Ferraris for ‘playing games on the track’
- The Williams driver crashed out of SQ1 after hitting the barriers out of Turn 15
- The American had qualified a provisional 15th for the Sprint before withdrawing
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American rookie Logan Sargeant was withdrawn from the evening Sprint in Azerbaijan by Williams Saturday after crashing during the Sprint Shootout.
The Williams driver crashed out of SQ1, the first segment of qualifying for the Sprint, as he hit the barriers out of Turn 15. After sustaining significant damage to the car, he will not participate in the 100km Sprint.
After the Shootout, the FIA released the following statement: ‘The Stewards have received a request from Williams Racing to withdraw Car 2 from the Sprint following the Sprint Shootout incident.’
The American driver had qualified a provisional 15th for the Sprint but appeared to blame his fellow drivers ahead of him for his crash.
‘When two cars want to play games in the hardest corner of the track it makes my life extremely difficult,’ he said following SQ1.
American rookie Logan Sargeant was withdrawn from the evening Sprint in Azerbaijan
The Williams driver crashed out of SQ1 as he hit the barriers out of Turn 15 on Saturday
‘Obviously it’s my job to not put it in the wall so I’m sorry to the team for that and the damage that I caused but I feel like the people in front of me could have helped me out a little bit,’ added Sargeant before the withdrawal had been announced.
‘It was pretty heavy. A lot of work for the boys, so again I feel bad about that. But I know they’ll be working as hard as they can and I’ll keep looking at what I can do better for this afternoon.
‘I feel like we had really good speed in it and to end it like that its pretty bad.’
He appeared to blame the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, who weren’t on competitive laps, for forcing him wide as he tried to pass.
‘Man, the Ferraris were in the middle of the road,’ Sargeant said over the radio.
Meanwhile, Leclerc also hit the wall but still managed to qualify on pole position for Saturday’s sprint race in Formula One’s first ‘sprint shootout’ qualifying session.
He appeared to blame the Ferraris who weren’t on competitive laps, for forcing him wide
The Ferrari driver, who also qualified on pole Friday for the main Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday, set a fast time midway through the last segment of the shootout but then veered into a barrier and broke his front wing. Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen each had another lap to beat Leclerc’s time but fell short, with Perez placing second and Verstappen third.
‘We´ll go for it, but we need also to be realistic and until now we have been on the back foot in the race. Especially the Red Bull seems to be a step ahead, so let’s see how it is,’ Leclerc said of the sprint race later in the day. ‘Hopefully we have a good surprise. I think we improved the car quite a bit, but today we’ll have more of an answer in the race to see where we are compared to them.’
The new ‘shootout’ event is a shortened version of the usual qualifying format which decides the grid for the 17-lap sprint race.
Previously, F1 race weekends had a standard qualifying session for the sprint race, then used the sprint results as the grid for the main Grand Prix. The format change is designed to encourage drivers to take more risks in the sprint race because they won’t risk being penalized for the Grand Prix.
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