Logan Sargeant definitely felt bittersweet after Saturday's Dutch GP qualifying after the Williams charger's first visit to F1's shootout ended with a massive crash.
The wet-to-dry session was a challenging exercise throughout, but Sargeant managed to steer clear of trouble in the first two segments of qualifying to gain access to Q3 for the very first time.
Onboard a Williams car that was performing surprisingly well in Zandvoort's high-downforce environment, Sargeant, whose seat with the British outfit is not secure for 2024, was determined to make the most of his mount's efficiency following the example set in the session at that point by teammate Alex Albon.
But on his second flyer, the American pushed too hard and put his left front wheel off the dry line on his approach to Turn 2, with disastrous consequences as the Williams left the track and heavily clouted the barriers.
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"The last thing I ever want to do is leave the team with a boat load of damage," said a disconcerted Sargeant after the incident.
"I’m doing my best to deliver good results. I think there’s been so many positives this weekend.
"Yesterday in the dry, I feel like I was really pretty much right there. I think the long run pace was really good. We’ve had the car in a great window.
"Even Q1, Q2, I missed a little bit of pace today in the wet, but I think the biggest positive for me is delivering laps when I needed to. And that’s something I’ve lacked this year, and to be able to do that has been really nice today.
"But yeah, it’s all just shattered by a millimeter mistake."
Sargeant vowed to do his best to put the fracas behind him and focus on the positives that he will carry into Sunday's race.
"I need to look back and see what went wrong, but not dwell on it because our long run pace here has been great," he added.
"We’ll get the car rebuilt as close as we can and try to score some points.
"I’ve personally seen progress the entire European leg and I know it is just a matter of time; I’m really close now, starting to understand how to extract the time from the car and that’s what makes today even more painful.
"I’m disappointed to leave the team with a damaged car but I’ll reset, help the team and we’ll go again tomorrow."
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