Williams team principal James Vowles says he was convinced Logan Sargeant had reached the limit of his performance and revealed what led him to pick Franco Colapinto over more experienced options to replace the American.
Sargeant was dropped after last Sunday’s race in Zandvoort, with rookie Colapinto taking over from this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix onwards. The change came after months of speculation regarding Sargeant’s future and a heavy crash in practice, and Vowles (pictured at right, above, with Colapinto, middle) says it was a move he didn’t want to make but felt he had to as he didn’t see any further potential progression on the cards.
“If you speak to every team principal up and down the pit lane, no one wants to change a driver mid-season,” Vowles said. “It’s horrible. It is incredibly tough on the driver, it’s tough on the team, it is disruptive to say the least. The cleanest point to have done it would have been at the beginning of the year.
“Logan at the end of last year was starting to get within a tenth of Alex [Albon] and if that progression continued I think we would have seen a driver in a very strong place this year, and it didn’t feel like the right point to sever ties as a result of it.
“The reason now is straightforward — we’ve had enough experience under our belt to know he’s reached the limit of what he’s able to achieve, and in fact it’s almost unfair on him furthermore to continue with him. If you look at his face when he gets out of the car, he’s given you everything he possibly can, and it’s not enough.
“He absolutely never from a human perspective gave me anything other than 100% of what he’s able to do, but the realization of where he is on his limits now is very clear; it’s clear to everyone, and more than that, the relationship can only become more and more difficult across the last nine races because he knows what his future holds, which is not to be in F1 anymore.
“Actually a clean break at this stage feels like the correct decision for all parties. It feels like it’s fair to Logan — he won’t feel that way today, but I hope he reflects on it in the future that it is fair towards him in that regard.
“Changing between back-to-back races really is an awful thing to do, which hopefully shows you where we are in this. And to be very clear to everyone it wasn’t just based on an accident, it was based on in the race he had all of the parts that Alex had available to him, but the performance wasn’t there, he was lacking in that area, and the gap’s almost as big as it was last year.”
Colapinto was a surprising choice given his lack of experience, with the Argentinian competing in his first season of Formula 2 this year but now stepping up for the final nine races. Vowles says he informed Sargeant of the decision on Tuesday and while he had two more experienced options he didn’t see Mick Schumacher as a strong enough candidate to pick over a Williams Driver Academy member.
“There were three options on the table — one was Liam Lawson, one was Mick, and one was Franco,” Vowles said. “With Liam the contractual situation with Red Bull wouldn’t have worked with me here at Williams. And then it’s a tough choice, it really is. Mick has improved a lot from where he was with Haas, there’s no doubt about it. He’s a competent driver that I know he had his time, but he has done incredible work with Alpine, with Mercedes, and with McLaren in the meantime, and all advocates will speak with you and tell you where he’s adapted and where he’s changed.
“So now the decision is do we put Mick in the car — and I think Mick would have done a good job — or do we invest in an individual that’s a part of our academy, that’s done hundreds of thousands of laps in the simulator, that’s driven our car –the only driver to do so this year in FP1 — and on the data from what we can see and how he’s performing, he’s making significant steps.
“So it becomes a decision, do we invest in the future or do we invest in someone else as a result of it? Both will fall into a category of good, not special, I think we have to be straightforward about this: Mick isn’t special, he just would have been good.”
Vowles emphasized Colapinto’s place in the team’s academy was key.
“He [Schumacher] would have come with a lot more experience than Franco does, but here’s what I and Williams believe in, the core values: Williams has always invested in new generations of driver and youth, and what I’ve been speaking about all the way through is the future of Williams, and the future of Williams isn’t in investing in the past, it’s investing in talent that allows us to move forward as individuals.
“It’s investing in an academy — you’ll see announcements in the next six weeks or so how we’re filling up that academy — and the amount of finance we’re putting into it, and when you’re putting that amount of finance into your academy you’ve got to put your actions where your words are as well.
“I myself 25 years ago was junior and someone trusted in me and believed in me and invested in me. Franco’s ahead in the F2 championship of [Kimi] Antonelli, he’s ahead of [Oliver] Bearman, and he’s with MP, which with all due respect to MP it’s not Prema or ART, and he’s doing a good job of building up into it.
“Do I think we’ve put someone into the deep end of the swimming pool? Absolutely, 100%, but if you listen to Franco’s own words you’ll hear that he’s up for it, and he knows what’s in front of him, and he’s ready for the challenge.
“So answering your question, I want to demonstrate to the world that investing in a driver that I hope will become a very successful reserve driver for us, simulator driver for us — and other aspects depending on how he performs — is investing in the future of Williams.”