Logan Sargeant now admits Williams decision ‘really hurt’ his Italian GP

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Logan Sargeant has now admitted that Williams’ reluctance to give the American the Formula 1 team’s current spec front wing at Monza ‘really hurt’ his Italian Grand Prix.

The 22-year-old took a P13 finish in Sunday’s race for his third-best result on the F1 grid so far. Only at July’s British GP has Sargeant claimed a better finish after crossing the line P11 at Silverstone. He also finished P12 on his Formula 1 debut at the season-opening Bahrain GP.

Sargeant travelled to Monza on a low, however, after crashing twice across the Dutch GP the week before. The Zandvoort weekend may have been the high point of the Fort Lauderdale, Florida native’s F1 career so far. But the crashes blighted his otherwise promising weekend.

Williams were reluctant to give Sargeant their new front wing

Changeable conditions at Zandvoort saw Sargeant shine and the Williams driver reached Q3 in qualifying for the first time in his fledgling F1 career. But the American dipped a wheel off line and onto a damper part of the track during his first flying run of Q3 and he crashed out.

His race also came to an end in a barrier at the Dutch GP as Sargeant’s hydraulics failed after the Williams driver hit a kerb. The incident wrote off Williams’ updated front wing that they gave Sargeant at Zandvoort. So, the team were reluctant to give him another one at Monza.

“So, obviously, he has had it [before],” Williams’ head of vehicle performance, Dave Robson, explained, via quotes by RacingNews365. “But following [the Dutch GP], we weren’t quite so confident to put them [the new front wings] onto both cars.

“I think for the rest of the season, we’re just going to have to juggle which wing is best for which circuit, for which driver and I think we’ll see them mix and match. Sometimes they’ll be on the same [and] sometimes they won’t. We just have to manage that stock level.”

Sargeant admits the old spec front wing ‘really hurt’ his Italian GP

But Sargeant now admits that running an older spec front wing at the Italian GP as Williams fear running out of parts ‘really hurt’ his Grand Prix. The American had to tussle with his car throughout the race at Monza. All the while teammate Alex Albon finished the race in P7.

“Lesmo one and two and the Parabolica was just, honestly, just trying to keep the car under me,” Sargeant said, via quotes by RacingNews365. “The rear was super light. I had to run a different spec front wing this weekend. I think that’s what really hurt our balance.

“I think if we had the normal one, we would have been ok and it would have honestly made a big difference in terms of [tyre] degradation.

“It is what it is. We’ll keep working hard. We put everything together as well as we could and it wasn’t enough. So, we’ll go back to the drawing board and see what we can do for Singapore. Pieces are coming together, just not as fast as I hoped.”

Albon used Williams’ latest front wing at Monza and the team also installed a fresher power unit in the 27-year-old’s car than Sargeant had for the Italian GP. They combined to hand the London-born Thai a rapid car in a straight line that thwarted McLaren’s Lando Norris’ efforts.