Williams team principal James Vowles has explained that the developmental impact of incidents was behind the decision to swap Logan Sargeant for Franco Colapinto this year.
Sargeant was granted a second season with the Grove-based outfit and, while showing flashes of speed in the first half of the campaign, a number of incidents — including at his final event at Zandvoort — proved costly and saw him dropped from the team.
Colapinto has impressed since taking over, scoring points again at the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas, though he currently doesn’t have a race seat for next year with Carlos Sainz already confirmed to be joining Alex Albon.
Speaking on the latest James Allen on F1 podcast, Vowles revealed the «multi-million» dollar reasoning behind making the switch.
«Have a look towards teams moving towards experienced drivers over the last few years, rather than perhaps the rookie base. Obviously, within Williams, we had Logan in the car, more the rookie base but that’s changed in 25,» he said.
«Part of the reason, the drive behind that is that the learning cycle required for any of these individuals to be successful on this world stage, amongst peers, they will make mistakes.
Logan Sargeant, Williams FW46, jumps out of his car after a crash
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
«But a mistake could be costly. Some of ours this year are multi-million, as simple as that, and your multi-million now goes into just replenishing stock of what you had, rather than building future updates and so it’s a finite pool available to you.
«I think you’re going to see… you have seen a lot of investment in that. There’s other ways that we’re moving forward, and in my DNA and Williams’s DNA is investing in future generations, both within graduates for employing and early careers but also in drivers.
«As you’ll know, that was really [in] my heart for many, many years and remains there, and it’s why when we came to the end of the road with Logan, it was Franco we put in the car, to make sure that we continued investment in our academy programme, which I think has great success and I hope the world can see the future success it contains.
«A statistic I saw last year was that Max had no accidents, no real substantive crash damage. I’m not sure if that’s entirely correct, or maybe part way through the year I watched it, but that’s millions that you can now put into the developments that others wouldn’t have. So it is about being fast and efficient but keeping as much on the table as possible.»
You can listen to the latest podcast episode here: