Otmar Szafnauer shares what he was ‘wrong’ about after Williams dropped Logan Sargeant

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It’s a rare occurrence that Formula 1 teams decide that a mid-season driver change is needed these days, but two racers have lost their seats in the past two months.

Daniel Ricciardo said an emotional farewell to the F1 paddock in Singapore despite his RB team not officially confirming his departure until several days after the Grand Prix.

He was the only permanent replacement brought in by a team last year after stepping into the underperforming Nyck de Vries’s AlphaTauri.

However, before Ricciardo was moved on, Williams decided that enough was enough and parted ways with Logan Sargeant.

READ MORE: Williams driver Logan Sargeant’s life outside F1 from height to Donald Trump ties

Sargeant was the final driver last season to have his seat confirmed for the 2024 campaign, having to wait until after the finale in Abu Dhabi to discover his fate.

Unfortunately, the young American failed to score a point in an improving Williams car and after a huge crash at Zandvoort in practice where he destroyed some of the team’s newly developed parts, James Vowles made the difficult call to let him go.

Speaking on the High Performance Podcast, former F1 team principal Otmar Szafnauer discussed the decision the Grove-based team made.

He admitted that he was very surprised by how quickly Sargeant’s replacement Franco Colapinto got up to speed when given just a few days’ notice before his first race at Monza.

Colapinto impressed during his FP1 session at Silverstone earlier in the year, but nobody expected that one-hour session to be an audition to jump into Sargeant’s car before the end of the year.

Particularly as Williams had already moved to sign Carlos Sainz for the 2025 season to partner Alex Albon, leaving the young Argentinian hoping that his eye-catching performances could tempt Sauber into offering him a way to stay on the grid next year.

Otmar Szafnauer ‘wrong’ about Franco Colapinto after replacing Logan Sargeant at Williams

Talking about the pros and cons of replacing a driver in the middle of a season, Szafnauer said: “I guess it’s such a meritocracy that everybody wants to do the best they can in the championship.

“And you only know if you have better information whether the answer to that question is yes or no. Meaning who else do you have that you can put in the car that might go a bit quicker, number one?

READ MORE: Everything to know about Williams driver Franco Colapinto with praise to stats

“And number two, how quickly will that person come up to speed? Now, I remember when Williams made the decision not long ago to remove Logan Sargeant.

“To remove Logan Sargeant, my first thought was whoever they put in the car is going to take three, four, five races to get up to speed and I was wrong.

“But he got up to speed nearly instantly. I was wrong.

“So it’s hard to know, but I do understand the decision-making process because the value of a position is high. And the bigger that value, the more decisions like this you’re going to make.”

Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz already in discussions over next season at Williams

Colapinto has barely put a foot wrong since his hasty promotion to Formula 1, with a mistake in his first qualifying session at the Italian Grand Prix and a crash in FP1 in Baku, the only blots on his copybook.

However, Colapinto is set to miss out on a seat at Sauber for next year despite already scoring more points than Sargeant did in his F1 career.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Williams Racing from team principal to Mercedes relationship

Williams will be very excited about Albon and Sainz driving alongside each other as they are both more than good enough to race for a team much further up the grid.

Albon has admitted that he’s already talking to Sainz before the pair race together in 2025.

If they can form a strong relationship, then there’s no reason why Williams can’t be the best of the rest on the grid next year before hoping that their Mercedes power unit will propel them even further up the order when the regulations change in 2026.