Logan Sargent responds to Williams sidelining him to give Alex Albon a ride at the Australian GP

Alex Albon had a horrific crash during Free Practice 1 at the Albert Park F1 circuit.

Logan Sargent responds to Williams sidelining him to give Alex Albon a ride at the Australian GP

Logan Sargeant and Alex Albon

Not the start to the Australian GP weekend Williams would have wanted. During the FP1 session, Alex Albon had an incident on the track, while he was safe and sound, the car suffered extensive damage. The team took to their social media handles and confirmed that they would be withdrawing Albon’s chassis and sending it back to HQ. 

What major problem the team is facing is that currently, they do not have a third chassis in Melbourne. This has forced the team to make a difficult decision, James Vowels and Co. have decided that Alex Albon will be racing for the rest of the race weekend in Logan Sargeant‘s car.

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For Logan Sargeant, this was extremely tough news to digest!

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This is the hardest moment I can remember in my career and it’s absolutely not easy. I am however completely here for the team and will contribute in any way that I can this weekend to maximise what we can do.
Logan Sargeant said via Williams X handle

The team is already underperforming and situations like these affect the morale of the entire team immensely. As for the weekend ahead, Alex Albon is the only hope for the team to score whatever points they can score. Albon himself feels bad for such a situation and is thus, fully determined to focus on bringing good results. 

James Vowels has opened up about the massive crash of Alex Albon

Despite crashing at Albert Park, Alex Albon finished the Free Practice 1 session with the 12th fastest time. His FW46 was damaged when he ran wide through Turn 6 and bottomed out at Turn 7. The crash was quite big, but luckily Albon was unharmed.

James Vowels
James Vowels (Via: Imago)

However, the crash put the team in a very difficult place as they had to choose between their two drivers for taking over on the race weekend. The Williams team principal James Vowles has opened up about the incident.

We are hugely disappointed that the damage sustained to the chassis has meant we need to withdraw it from the weekend. It’s unacceptable in the modern-day Formula One  not to have a spare chassis, but it is a reflection of how behind we were during the winter period and an illustration of why we need to go through significant change in order to get ourselves in a better position for the future.
James Vowels via Williams X handle

The team principal has admitted that they are lagging. Due to not having an extra chassis, the team has landed itself in a troublesome situation. The team is grateful to Sargent for taking one for the team and is deeply disappointed with what went down. Going forward, the team’s sole focus is to make improvements and have solid outings during the upcoming two days.  

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