Sargent: I’m sure I was able to find another way of working

It cannot be said that Logan Sargent performed particularly well in the youth series, but he was still sometimes on the podium, taking victories and taking pole positions. The American driver finished his only full season in Formula 2 in 4th place in the individual standings – this was in 2022, when Felipe Drugovich became champion with a very convincing advantage.

However, the Brazilian is still on the bench at the Aston Martin team, while Sargent competes in Formula 1 for Williams and is now preparing for his second season. But in 2023 he performed extremely unevenly, often had accidents, took only 20th place in the individual competition and only after the end of the championship did Williams decide to extend his contract.

But James Vowles, who has led the team since last winter, understands the difficulties an inexperienced driver faces in Formula 1, so he gave Sargent another chance. Furthermore, from his point of view, Logan improved noticeably at the end of the season, even if the American’s results did not reflect this.

Sargent himself, analyzing the results of the debut season, admitted: “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 continue where we left off and make improvements…”

In an interview with Speedcafe, he talked in more detail about the nature of the problems he had to overcome: “It’s just called trial and error. Unfortunately, you only realize that something needs to change when you make a mistake.

A good example was the stage in Las Vegas. Thanks to our car I was finally able to fight for the second part of qualifying and got the chance to drive a little more freely. To qualify for the next session I didn’t have to push myself so I was able to improve every lap.

If you don’t have to drive on the limit from the first lap of the first part of qualifying, that helps a lot, especially if you don’t have enough experience yet. As for my approach, if you ask too much of a car, it’s easy to overdo it.

In fact, you just have to slow down a bit and drive at the level the car is capable of and be happy with that. Even if you unfortunately don’t get past the first session, it’s still better than hitting the wall like I did in Suzuka.

Now I am 100% sure that I have found a completely different way of working. I just know that as the weekend goes on, I can do much better. I already know the capabilities of the machine and I know what it doesn’t like. Although it is clear that a lot will change in 2024, because we will have a new car.

But I feel like I have a much better feel for it, I drive it more naturally, but I also hope that a more efficient car will confirm what I’m talking about. There are many factors, but I think the most important thing is the amount of knowledge I have already gathered, the understanding of the machine’s functions, and most importantly, I have already understood myself better and how to interact with the technology. to achieve the desired results. But it took longer than I wanted.”