Williams ‘want Sargeant in the car next year’ as Vowles sets 'clear targets'

Sargeant’s future has been thrown into doubt amid his ongoing struggles during his rookie campaign, which has been blighted by several costly crashes, the latest of which occurred during qualifying at the Japanese Grand Prix. 

The 22-year-old American, who made the step up from Formula 2, is the only full-time driver on the grid yet to score a point this season, with teammate Alex Albon claiming all of Williams’ 21 points to date. 

Williams team principal Vowles has once again publicly backed Sargeant and defended his performances. 

"Logan has very clear targets of what he has to hit before the end of the season, and we are working with him continuously," Vowles said in an interview on the Williams website. 

"And that’s the important point, we are working with him. We want him to succeed, and we want him in the car next year.

"This is very much on us as well. We have taken someone straight from Formula 2, without any significant testing, put him a day and half in Bahrain in this car, and then wished them well on a season that has been awfully challenging for rookies, full stop.

“There were some very positive signs to take out. First and foremost, Logan is not on the same aerodynamic specific as Alex was. We have updates that are on Alex’s car that are not on Logan's, due to the amount of attrition we have had this year.

“So, often when you see a performance offset it is not quite what it may seem on the timing pages. Furthermore, to that, if you look at the case of Suzuka, he did a build up across the weekend, as he went into FP3, he did a time that matched Alex.

“And as we go into qualifying, until the accident he was overlaying, line-on-line, within a tenth of Alex’s performance at one of the trickiest circuits of the season.” 

Vowles stressed that Williams are “nowhere near” reaching “the end of the road” with Sargeant. 

"So, the progress is there in certain forms but very clearly being marred by a number of other issues and accidents have appeared as well,” he added. 

“We will continue to work with Logan, and invest in Logan, as we want him to succeed as a result of the journey he is on.

“He is on a journey with us as Williams, we have a young driver programme that we will continue to invest in. 

“And only at the point where all of us come to the conclusion that we have reached the end of that road will we make any decisions, but we are nowhere near that yet.”