Vowles sees Sargeant struggle: 'The frustration has been there for months'

On the eve of the US Grand Prix, Logan Sargeant is the only one on the Formula 1 grid still uncertain about his future. The rookie has not managed to collect a single point to date and sees his position under serious pressure. James Vowles, Williams' team principal, wants to see improvement in performance. But: "We see it as our responsibility to invest in our rookie drivers."

Logan Sargeant is no fool. The Miami native knows better than anyone that his performance is not good enough. While teammate already collected 23 points, the American is still at the hateful zero. In the fierce battle to overtake Alfa Romeo, Haas F1 and AlphaTauri in the final races of the season, every point taken by Sargeant is more than welcome for Williams.

Earlier this week, Sargeant said as much during an exclusive interview with GPblog: "I'm always critical of myself. However, I realise the level of difficulty and the challenge that F1 is. You're up against 20 drivers with more experience who are also amazing drivers. So you do appreciate how difficult the challenge is. But at the end of the day, you need to keep improving and get to the level I need to be at.''

'Sargeant makes mistakes at crucial moments'

James Vowles is trying to help Sargeant as much as he can, he told in Qatar: "So he and I talk at least once a week, if not multiple times a week. The pace is there. That's the thing that we wouldn't be able to fix or repair. But what happens is when it comes down to the crunch time, there are elements of inconsistency that creep in and in form of that goes into an accident at times, leading to accidents."

The team principal gave the example of Sargeant's slide at Suzuka. On the data, Williams saw that Albon and the American driver were driving a similar lap. "But obviously it's marred by the fact that the last corner, he had far too aggressive throttle application and had a significant crash as a result of it. What we're working with him on is actually the progression. Up until that point, he dialled it from two seconds away to Alex to within a tenth in FP3. In fact, he was faster in FP3. And it's actually keeping that mindset all the way through that we're trying to do. We have, and I've said this publicly, a responsibility to invest in our rookie drivers."

"We put him there and we've given him nearly no testing mileage. I'm used to 30,000 kilometres, not 850 kilometres. But what we want to see is continued progress and now focus on making sure we get that consistency in there, which will then deliver results," Vowles said.

Was Sargeant thinking too easily about Formula 1?

Especially for a young driver, with the constant pressure of Formula 1, it is easy to imagine that at some point his mind runs over. "I think from him, the frustration has been there for many months, actually. He went into Bahrain, overlapped with Lando in terms of Q1. And he thought perhaps the challenge in front of him may not be as significant as it really is. Alex has grown, I think, across this season, and the gap started to grow."

"You found a driver that's now frustrated. His normal tools aren't producing the quality of lap time that was there previously. He knows how to win. He's won in Formula 3, won Formula 2. But applying that now in Formula 1 and then not achieving results creates more and more frustration. And then that ends up with overdriving, fundamentally."

So Sargeant does not yet know whether he will get a second season in Formula 1. The decision on his future, the American will not hear for now, Vowles informed. "No, I suspect it’ll be to the end of the season. I think we've already committed to the direction of travel we're in. He has targets for that and it'd be wrong to go against that decision point. So end of the year."