Has the writing been on the wall since Australia for Logan Sargeant?

Williams has opted to axe Logan Sargeant from their 2024 driver line-up for the rest of the season but the writing seems to have been written on the wall since Australia. 

Feature image credit: Red Bull Content Pool

It’s not often but Formula 1 still highlights how cut-throat this sport can be, it’s the second season in a row where a driver has been cut from the sport mid-season; Nyck de Vries last season and Sargeant now. 

When the rumours started to pile in, piling the pressure on an already under-performing Sargeant, that a mid-season change was on the cards for Williams many, probably, weren’t surprised when the change came about on Tuesday.

It’s a brutal decision for the William higher-ups to make but that is the harsh reality of this sport. However, it seems like the writing has been written on the wall for Sargeant since Australia.

In Free Practice at Melbourne, Alex Albon ruined this car and left the team with one car to compete with for the rest of the weekend and the team sidelined Sargeant to allow Albon to compete. Given Albon’s ability to muster up the points, it gave them their biggest chance of scoring points in a troubled weekend. 

At the same time, on the other side of the coin, it showed that they didn’t have the confidence in Sargeant to pull the points out of the bag when they needed him to. 

In all honesty, who can blame them? 

Sergeant has scored one sole point in his 36-race career and that was in a race where he finished 12th, at the 2023 United States Grand Prix. He only secured this sole point following disqualifications from Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.

Burdened with two considerable shunts this year, in Japan and the Netherlands, it seems as though the latter was the last straw that broke the camel’s back – especially to keep Williams within the cost-cap regulations.  

It seems Williams doesn’t believe it is sustainable to keep him on as their driver for the rest of the season and has brought in fresh blood, in the case of Franco Colapinto, to try and bolster their championship standings.  

Sergeant has shown splashes of promising performance throughout his tenure in the sport, which would’ve caught the eyes of Williams during his junior career, he has just failed to capitalise on this. At the end of the day, F1 – like all the other sports – is down to performance: you sink or swim. 

So, to answer the headline question, has the writing been on the wall since Australia? Yes, I believe so which has snowballed Sargeant to this point.

There are still seats up for grabs in F1 which means he still has a chance to retain a seat in the pinnacle of single-seaters but it is likely he have to settle for another racing series, IndyCar being a likely outcome. 

Read more Formula 1 here:

• Albon leaves supporting message to Sargeant following drop
• Williams F1 replace Logan Sargeant ahead of Italian GP
• Andrea Kimi Antonelli to participate at home in Italian GP FP1
• A timeline of events: Haas F1 vs Uralkali
• Haas free to leave the Netherlands following Uralkali dispute
• Hamilton reveals two-stop was not original plan of Dutch GP recovery drive

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Kamron Kent

Hi, I’m Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion.

I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I’ve loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.

Kamron Kent

Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.