by VALERIO BARRETTA
Sargeant, patience is over
Zandvoort crash costs Logan Formula 1 SargeantWilliams has just announced that it has dropped the American and replaced him with Franco Colapinto.
As we reported, when the American crashed in FP3 (in a serious way that prevented Williams from fully evaluating the updates to the single-seater), team principal James Vowles began to think about the future of the 2000-born driver. Sargeant’s departure is therefore not a surprise, but his replacement is: Colapinto (who will use the #43) is a Williams graduate but has never raced in Formula 1 – he “only” took part in FP1 at Silverstone this year. The favourite candidates to replace Sargeant – Liam Lawson and Mick Schumacher – can certainly boast greater experience.
Williams evidently preferred the internal solution, certainly the quickestalso because the trust in Sargeant as a regular driver had waned and it made little sense to race at Monza as separated drivers at home. This perhaps explains, and with the renunciation of developing young drivers from other teams, the no to Lawson (to whom Helmut Marko had given the green light) and Schumacher.
Colapinto’s words
Colapinto – who raced in Formula 2 this year, winning a race at Imola – commented on his promotion as follows: “It’s an honour to make my Formula 1 debut with Williams, it’s a dream.. The team has an amazing history and a mission to get back to the front, I can’t wait to be part of it. Coming into F1 halfway through the season will be a huge learning curve, but I’m up for the challenge and fully focused on working as hard as I can with Alex and the team.”.
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