Sargeant calls Melbourne withdrawal ‘hardest moment in my career.
A F1 team worth $200 Billion cannot afford to have more than one race car chassis?
NASCAR teams have a second complete car in the top floor of the hauler for EVERY race car on the track.
No wonder that Formula 1 has trouble convincing people that F1 is actually racing of some kind and they have to give tickets away to fool someone at the Miami Gran prix.
Nyah, Nyah, Nyah we got some publicity and you didn't....
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Chris Medland | March 22, 2024 8:39 AM ET
Logan Sargeant describes having his entry sacrificed by Williams at the Australian Grand Prix as “the hardest moment I can remember in my career.”
The American will not take part in the rest of the race weekend in Melbourne because Williams does not have a spare chassis, and Alex Albon’s crash in FP1 damaged his to the extent that it can’t be repaired away from the team’s factory. With just one usable chassis between two drivers, Williams made the decision to allow Albon
(pictured at right, above, with Sargeant) to take over Sargeant’s car, leaving the 23-year-old to watch from the sidelines.
“This is the hardest moment I can remember in my career and it’s absolutely not easy,” Sargeant said. “I am, however, completely here for the team and will continue to contribute in any way that I can this weekend to maximize what we can do.”
Albon admits he is finding the situation tough himself, but says he needs to reset to try and repay Williams’ faith with a strong performance over the remainder of the weekend. At least they are not making me sleep outside on the grass.
“I have to be totally honest and say that no driver would want to give up his seat,” Albon said. “I would never want anything like this to happen. Logan has always been a consummate professional and a team player from day one, and this won’t be an easy one for him to take.
“At this point, though, I cannot dwell on the situation and my only job now is to maximize our potential this weekend and work with the whole team to make sure we do the best job possible.”
Williams team principal James Vowles called it “unacceptable in modern day Formula 1 not to have a spare chassis” after seeing his team reduced to one car, with Williams behind on its car build over the whole winter as new processes and software were put in place, another BS excuse.
Albon will not take a penalty for the Australian race as it stands, although any power unit component changes will only be confirmed when the car hits the track for the first time during FP3 on Saturday.
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Blame for Williams chassis issue is on me - Vowles
Guess what buttheads! We are going to get the car done in time!
Fooled You! Fooled You! F.U! F.U!
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Chris Medland | March 28, 2024 8:36 AM ET
Williams team principal James Vowles says he has to take the blame for the lack of a spare chassis that left the team with just one car racing in the Australian Grand Prix.
Alex Albon’s crash in FP1 damaged his chassis, and with Williams still yet to have manufactured a spare, it was left to the team to decide which of the two drivers would get to compete in the rest of the race weekend. Vowles opted to withdraw Logan Sargeant, leaving Albon to take over his teammate’s car and finish 11th in the race. But after describing the situation as “unacceptable,” Vowles says he takes responsibility.
“It lies on me, there’s nowhere else it should ever stop,” Vowles told Speed City Broadcasting. “We’ve changed so much technology within the factory — we’ve changed how we design and produce the chassis, we’ve changed how we do things aerodynamically, we’ve changed how we add performance, how we do upgrades…
“We’ve added process; we’ve added at the same time we’re going to do three cars — not one car — and you would imagine that stretches an organization to the limit.
“In the beginning of the year we were very open and honest — we were so late on the car because we changed so much, and one of the outcomes of that is we couldn’t make an additional chassis. You can’t move forward unless you are prepared to take some massive risks, and we did. But the outcome of it is you play with fire, and that caught us out.”
Shortly after Albon’s crash, Vowles couldn’t guarantee the damaged chassis would be repaired for the following race in Japan, but now believes the required work should be completed in plenty of time.
“I’m confident that we’ll be able to fix the chassis,” he said. “We put measures in place to ensure the chassis was back here very early on Monday morning — I think arrived around 2am or so — and since then there was already crews inside the building working on that, stripping it down and doing repairs.
“We’re in a good place for having the chassis back early enough for Suzuka. A lot of the work’s done actually back in Melbourne; there were photographs and techniques called NDT — non-destructive testing — there’s various ones you can do there, but it allows us to fully understand how big the damage is and what we have to do.
“And that preparation is key. What it meant was already at 2am on Monday, work could start. It wasn’t then a reflection on what was happening, it was more, ‘This is what we’re doing and this is how we execute it.’ So in Suzuka we’ll have two cars without too many issues.
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