Logan Sargeant was surprised by his collision with Nyck de Vries at the final standing restart of the Australian Grand Prix.
The Williams driver ran into the back of his AlphaTauri rival as they approached the first corner. Both skidded into the gravel trap. De Vries’ race ended there, while Sargeant continued to finish in 16th place.The entire field switched to the soft tyres for the restart and Sargeant, unlike De Vries, had the benefit of a new set. He was therefore surprised to run into the back of his rival when he hit the brakes.
“The last restart was was pretty weird,” said Sargeant. “I felt like I braked [like] I did on the previous two starts,” he told the official F1 channel, “but it just seemed like nothing was up to temperature: brakes, tyres.
“I hit the pedal and it was immediate. Both fronts locked and there was nothing I could do from there.”
He apologised to De Vries for the collision. “Sorry to Nyck. I didn’t want to end the day like that. It was a tough enough day as it was. It was disappointing.”
The stewards did not investigate the collision, but did look into the two other incidents which happened at the restart. Carlos Sainz Jnr was penalised for colliding with Fernando Alonso, though both continued to take the chequered flag.
Pierre Gasly was also investigated after tangling with Esteban Ocon, which put both Alpine drivers out of the race. The stewards did investigate this incident, but chose not to penalise Gasly after deeming it was a “first lap incident”.
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Steve (@duuxdeluxe)
2nd April 2023, 16:55
Baffled by how Sainz got a penalty when clearly trying to avoid Alonso when Sargeant does a Stroll and rams De Vries off into the gravel. The stewards seemed to be pretty random when it comes to handing out punishments on the one hand and calling things ‘first lap incidents’ without consequences on the other.
Really feels like they thought they had to act because of the consequence: Alonso getting knocked off of the podium and Sainz getting on it. However, the rules state that regardless of the outcome of a crash, the crash should be seen as is…
MichaelN
2nd April 2023, 17:23
Is Ferrari just going to take this?
Mike Davies (@nanotech)
2nd April 2023, 17:29
+1. Gasly I could see since it was blue on blue, but Sargent’s error was far greater than Sainz.
It would be moot in the standings, but rules are, apparently, rules.
AlanD
2nd April 2023, 17:44
Mike, I think even if you are taking out your own teammate, it still needs to incur a penalty in the ofrm of license points. The point of thhe points was to improve driving standards, so it shouldn’t matter who you crashed into and whether or not you were in a scoring position at the time.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
2nd April 2023, 18:48
I don’t want to see drivers get penalties, but the difference between Sainz & Logans is night and day. Carlos did what he could to avoid Fernando and it was just a horrible angle, a few inches forward or back and they’d probably just rub a wheel or a sidepod and get away with it. I’m not saying Carlos was blameless, but he’s by no means the first to be in that position at the first corner.
Logan went through Nyck like a bowling ball. I get things weren’t up to temperature, but if Nyck hadn’t been there Logan would probably have to wait for the wall to slow him down he was so far out with his braking. If Carlos had hit Fernando like that for 3rd I’m sure the stewards would have been far more interested.
I don’t want to see Logan punished, just consistency, regardless of championships or positions.
BasCB (@bascb)
3rd April 2023, 12:11
And then we add to that Gasly not being punished at all for rejoining the track in a way that took out his own car and his teammate, which, yeah it proves how haphazard the FIA stewarding is @bernasaurus