Sargeant: Confidence 'absolutely not' affected after costly error

Williams rookie Logan Sargeant says his confidence wasn't dented by his crash in final practice in Barcelona but the mishap proved "very costly" for qualifying.

Last month, Williams team boss James Vowles urged Sargeant "to get things under control" after the American's crash-ridden start to his maiden campaign in F1.

The Williams apprentice steered clear of trouble in Monaco, but suffered a crash in FP3 that forced his team to repair his FW45 with little time on its hands before the start of qualifying.

On Sunday, Williams opted to launch Sargeant's race from the pitlane, the American eventually concluding his day at the tail end of the field.

"I felt like the tyre just went away from me quickly and it was a tough last stint," he commented after his two-stop race.

"So I just need to understand why [there was a] variation between stints, other than that I was happy with the first two."

Sargeant reckoned that his tyre management skills are improving with each passing race.

"It's definitely better. It needs to keep improving, for sure," he added.

"But everything I'm doing still needs to keep improving, from qualy to race to everything, so [it's] just part of it.

"The biggest thing is [to] understand why the first two [stints] were good and why the last one wasn't."

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The 22-year-old acknowledged that his FP3 blunder had pretty much set the tone for the remainder of his Spanish Grand Prix weekend.

"I think it was a really good build-up on Friday," he said. "I think the one mistake [on Saturday] was very, very costly, even heading into qualifying.

"The car had to be rebuilt within two hours, [going] into qualifying and the conditions and everything just sort of led up to a not great qualifying."

Asked if his mistake in FP3 had eroded his confidence, Sargeant said: "Absolutely not."

"I think this week was the closest I've been [to extracting the maximum from the car]," he added.

"It didn't show in qualifying. That mistake in FP3, having to rush the car build back together, was very, very costly.

"I think, without that, we would have been close to extracting everything."

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