Williams’ eye-watering crash bill revealed with ‘overwhelmed’ Logan Sargeant warning

Logan Sargeant and a Williams logo

Former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher has told Logan Sargeant that he is “simply overwhelmed” by the F1 challenge and needs to “do something different”.

Sargeant has had, at best and as politely as possible, a mixed season with the American garnering sympathy when he was kicked out of his car in Australia as Williams made the controversial call to give it to Alex Albon.

Ralf Schumacher: ‘Logan Sargeant is overwhelmed’

But after two weeks of sympathising with the driver and team boss James Vowles being hauled over the coals, Sargeant promptly crashed in FP1 at the Japanese Grand Prix.

That marked the team’s second big crash in as many FP1 sessions.

In doing so Sargeant added to Williams’ extensive repair bill, one that has not only put upgrades on the backburner but, at worst, could delay the production of a third chassis beyond Miami.

That he had a big gravel-crunching off during the Grand Prix and once again finished point-less was a sidenote, such have been his 2024 performances.

And according to six-time Grand Prix winner Schumacher, the time has come for Sargeant to look outside of F1 for his racing future.

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Speaking to Sky Deutschland, the German said: “You have to be fair, he’s definitely gotten closer to Albon. But he just makes too many mistakes.

“That’s evident in that he runs over the car.

“It just keeps coming back to the same thing – he’s simply overwhelmed and it’s time for him to realise it and probably do something different.”

Such are Schumacher’s feelings on this, he reckons Williams should axe Sargeant before F1 2025.

“But I can’t imagine anything changing before Miami,” he said.

According to estimates, Williams have already suffered more than $2 million in crash damages.

As for Sargeant’s assessment of his off in Japan, he says he was “pushing as hard” as he could to catch the top-ten tussle which led to his Suzuka off.

“I bottomed on the exit kerb, locked up and went straight,” he said. “That moment was disappointing but leading up to it there were some positives.

“We had a bold strategy trying to do the Hard, Hard race which I think would’ve worked. Of course, the lap we try to pit everyone pits and instead of jumping four cars, we got jumped by four cars which can make or break a race. Had that gone to plan, the race would’ve played out very differently.

“Nonetheless, we tried to adapt to the situation by boxing again. We still could’ve had a decent result, but I made that little mistake.