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This is how Sargeant found out he is swapped out of Williams seat
Following the Dutch Grand Prix, it was announced that Argentinian F2 driver Franco Colapinto will replace Logan Sargeant at Williams for the remainder of the year, and will already start his F1 journey in Monza. At the Italian GP, team principal James Vowles explained how told the American he no longer has a seat at the team.
How did Vowles get in touch with Sargeant
"So, the contract was done all on Monday," Vowles began explaining the process to GPblog among others. "Actually, I was reasonably ill. I don't think I spoke to anyone here. But I was horizontal for most of Monday, trying to sort contracts out. I feel fine today. So, as a result of that, I didn't want any physical presence with anyone as a result of this. So, just an apology to that. It was Tuesday. Well, it was a bank holiday, wasn't it? It was Tuesday that Logan was contacted," he explained.
Vowles continued with explaining that emotions have no factor in making this decision. "If you act emotionally and react, you're going to make some bad decisions. So, one of the first things I did was not react to the crash. And, in fact, in many of that, isolated myself here. Because the emotion involved in taking hundreds of hours of update kit and watching it burn is pretty painful. That's purposely why I'm removing myself from that. It's also purposely why the decision was taken much later on, i.e. after the race weekend."
Zandvoort crash not the reason for the change
According the Briton the crash did not influece his decision of promoting Franco Colapinto. "I wanted [the seat] to be performance-based. Accidents will happen. They will happen with Alex. They have happened with Alex. It's not just an accident. It has to be you're earning your place here in the sport. And with Logan, what I wanted to do is give what I thought was sufficient time for him to demonstrate where he is on tracks that."
"From Zandvoort onwards, I believe we have built a car that is capable of points now. And that's where the decision point changes, to answer your question, it comes hand-in-hand with the performance of the car now being points-worthy," he continued.
Vowles concluded with what went wrong for the Amercian. "And in the case of it, it really did happen after the race on Sunday. And I dug through his data with enough detail to see where he was performance-wise, what was happening. It wasn't one area. There was a lack still of time management, a lack of pace. And where he finished was just too far back."
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