Sargeant: FP1 crash 'a silly error' that shouldn't happen

It's been an eventful few weeks for Logan Sargeant, after the American found himself withdrawn from the last Grand Prix in Australian through no fault of his own when Alex Albon crashed and suffered major damage to his Williams.

Sargeant had to hand over his own chassis so that Albon could race in Melbourne, leaving him watching the race from the sidelines.

He was back in action this morning in Japan, ironically racing Albon's now-repaired chassis. Biut this time it was Sargeant whose FP1 practice accident sent the Williams mechanics a Herculean repair task.

The work could not be completed in time for Sargeant to take part in FP2 but this proved to be a moot point as showers meant that no one got in much track time in the afternoon.

But that's small comfort to Sargeant, who admitted that his accident at Dunlop just after the midway point of FP1 has been a silly error on his part, one that he should not be making at this point in his sophomore season.

• Read also: Piastri quickest as showers thwart Suzuka second practice

He ran wide at the high-speed left-hander, and put his right-hand-side wheels on the grass which sent him spinning out of control and into a heavy impact with the barrier, damaging the suspension and cracking the gearbox of the FW46.

"I put the car in a place I didn’t realise I was at," Sargeant explained to the media later. "It’s a bit of a silly mistake and one that I shouldn’t be making, especially in FP1."

Sargeant had a similar accident at the same point of the Suzuka track in last year's race, but he said that the causes in both cases were not the same.

"It wasn’t like the mistake last year when I over pushed," he explained. "Nevertheless, I still left the team with some damage. Fortunately got away [with it] better than it could have been."

The team is confident that the car will be ready to take part in tomorrow's sessions. "He will be back in action in FP3," assured Dave Robson, who is head of vehicle performance for Williams.

"Whilst Logan’s crash caused a lot of damage, it was limited to the suspension, wings and floor with no damage done to the chassis or PU," he added.

Williams boss James Vowles concurred that the reasons behind Sargeant's two crashes had been quite distinct. “What you saw here wasn't a driver making a mistake because they were pushing to the limits,” he said.

“It's a very different type of mistake, a frustrating one by all accounts, because it wasn't on the limit of what the car could do. He just didn't know where the car was on track, relative to where he expected it to be anyway.

Sargeant insisted that the mishap wasn't down to his confidence getting knocked by the way he was stood down by the team in Melbourne.

"Definitely wasn't knocked at all,” he stated. “If anything I came into this round after a week off feeling more fresh and ready to go than ever.

"No confidence lost. I wanted to kick myself a little bit after today, but nothing to do with that, just a visual error that I'll move forward from tomorrow."

Vowles agreed that Sargeant's accident was unrelated to Australia, although in terms of repair costs and spare points the coincidental timing could hardly be worse for the squad.

"I don't think you're seeing there the reaction of someone that wasn't driving in Melbourne. You're seeing more just a situation that could have appeared at any time.”

From his side, Albon kept things clean. He was P12 in first practice and ran five laps in the rain-hit second session, but didn't set a completed lap time.

"It’s hard to say where we are with so few laps; we would’ve liked to run more in FP2 as we didn’t feel very comfortable with the car after the first session," he said after the end of the day.

"We tried to make some changes to improve this, however with limited running, we don’t have much to go off. Hopefully the setup will work for us into FP3 and we can learn more about the car ahead of qualifying."

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