Hill warns F1 driver: 'You can't suddenly become Max Verstappen'

Logan Sargeant had a difficult start to his Formula 1 season, after his career seemed to hang by a thread last year. Former F1 driver Damon Hill urged the Williams driver, above all, to stay close to himself and not try to suddenly become like Max Verstappen.

Hill: "You can't suddenly become Max Verstappen"

The first few race weekends of 2024 went disappoiningly for Sargeant, who made a few costly mistakes himself and then had to cede his car to teammate Alexander Albon in the Australian Grand Prix after the latter damaged his own F1 car in a crash.

The Japanese GP was not a success for Sargeant either. The American fell back due to a slow pit stop, only to skid off the track at a later point in the race. He was able to continue his way, but finished far behind the rest of the field. Damon Hill advises drivers not to ask more of themselves than they are capable of.

"There’s things you can affect and things you can’t affect. And the things you can affect, obviously, are the things you need to put all your focus on. And that means driving," said the Sky Sports analyst to the F1 Nation podcast. "I think that his crash at Suzuka was a sign that he felt he had to do something brilliant as soon as possible."

According to Hill, that was not the right approach: "I think that the panic should not set in, you need to keep a cool head to say, ‘Listen, there’s only so much you can do’. And you have to drive a little bit within yourself. You can’t suddenly become Max Verstappen in one mighty leap, you have to know yourself. So if he just does a good solid job in whatever race he comes up against, and just puts all the rest of it out of his head, because there’s nothing he can do about it anyway, then we’ll see what happens."