Logan Sargent: I understand what the team expects from me

Logan Sargent, summarizing the year’s results, emphasized that he understands what he needs to work on in 2024.

This is the latest edition of my column for the official championship website, which I’m writing at Williams’ Grove base on my last day with the team in 2023. Then I head home to Florida for a much-needed winter break.

My debut season in Formula 1 has been bumpy and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to continue this journey as I continue to drive for Williams Racing next year.

I am very happy that I can develop further with this team. So far I have only shown a small part of what I am capable of, and in the coming offseason I will have time to analyze everything and understand how I can improve myself.

Before the contract extension announcement, a few days after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, I didn’t know what awaited me in the future. I had a long, very honest and heartfelt chat with James Vowles, the team manager – this was on Tuesday after completing testing at the Yas Marina Circuit.

Then he congratulated me on the new contract and said he was happy to continue our cooperation. I’m happy with it too and then we discussed some key points that I should pay attention to; he expects this from me first and foremost.

That conversation was very important to me, and it was great to hear this news from James during our regular conversation, a conversation I’ve become accustomed to this year. I won’t go into detail about what he was talking about, but I understood what he wanted from me, and he understood what I was talking about.

This year a lot of time has been spent finding the right approach for the race weekend, for each session. I did not immediately understand how to act correctly to achieve the best possible results. But by the end of the year I was pretty happy with the direction we were going. Now I want to pick up where we left off and make improvements. This is exactly what the goal should be, I am more than confident that I will be able to achieve this.

It’s nice that my partner is a driver like Alex Albon, he sets excellent guidelines. I see what I need to work on, although it is not always easy to improve as the season progresses because we are constantly busy with the work in progress.

The team is in good spirits as Williams finished the season in 7th place in the Constructors’ Championship. But of course we have to remain realistic: we don’t expect the team to reach incredible heights next year. We have long since moved to preparing for 2024, and from my experience working on the simulator I can only say that we are on the right track. It seems that we have managed to take a good step forward. Although we should not indulge in emotions, we should be careful with predictions until we test the new car.

During the winter holidays I will not only relax, but also train to achieve better physical condition at the start of the next season. I think I have something to work on here too, so I will try to increase the intensity of my training and the duration of the training cycle. This must pay off.

Thank you all for your support! I wish you a Merry Christmas and see you on the trails in 2024!