Sargeant relieved to “finally have a pretty competitive race again”

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In the round-up: Williams’ rookie Logan Sargeant reckons the Austrian Grand Prix was one of his best races yet.

In brief

Sargeant’s confidence grows with Austria performance

Logan Sargeant’s 13th place in last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix was the second-best result of his rookie season to date, and left the Williams driver feeling very encouraged.

Although he started last on the grid and lost 12th to track limits penalties, Sargeant ran as high as ninth and thought Sunday’s grand prix was one of his best races yet.

“A good step in the right direction. Honestly, I think that’s more of what we had this whole weekend,” he said. “Just my fault for not getting it right in quali, but I think it shows we’re moving in the right direction.

“It feels good to finally have a pretty competitive race again. It sounds like a long time ago, but a more similar race to Bahrain where the pace was better and I was able to fight with others. Good race, got a little bit lonely at the end in that last stint, but I was able to hold on to it.”

Sargeant’s F1 debut in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix remains his best weekend of the year in terms of results, with his second-best qualifying position and best finishing position in a race.

Pirelli confirms Hungary debut for Alternative Tyre Allocation

Pirelli has confirmed Formula 1’s new Alternative Tyre Allocation will debut at the Hungarian Grand Prix, as revealed by RaceFans, after its planned introduction earlier in the year did not go ahead following the cancellation of Imola’s race.

Drivers will have to use hard compound tyres in Q1, mediums in Q2 and softs in Q3. The total number of tyres allocated to each driver for the weekend will be reduced as F1 evaluates a change intended to cut the amount of freight it takes to each race.

The softest tyres in Pirelli’s range will be used at the race – the C5, C4 and C3 – one stage softer than was used at the race last year. For the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps, drivers will have the C4, C3 and C2 as last year.

Palou downplays IndyCar domination

Palou is running away with the IndyCar championship
Alex Palou’s victory at Mid-Ohio last weekend was his fourth in the last five IndyCar races, and he now leads the championship by 110 points. However he says he’s not been the quickest driver throughout a weekend so far.

The Ganassi driver qualified fourth, assumed the lead after the first round of pit stops then built an advantage of five seconds by the chequered flag. He said the win was down to “having a good car and good strategy”, but Palou claimed he had to get creative to beat the drivers who qualified ahead.

“We had a really fast car, we knew we needed to try something different to the guys that are starting up front. That’s why we started on primary [harder compound tyres]. Everything went well, strategy, pit stops, and our pace was really good.”

He remained reluctant post-race to admit he is dominating the championship, saying “it’s really tight” at the top.

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“It’s all about putting everything together. We’ve been able to do this quite often this year, and hopefully we can keep it going. But honestly, we’ve not been the fastest on all practices or qualifying, just on the race. So that’s where I’m at.”

“I know we can have some good couple of races coming up now, and we’ll try to still maximise and do the best we can, try to win where we can”, he said.

Button finishes 21st in NASCAR’s history-making Chicago race

Button (#15) lined up eighth on the grid
The first ever street circuit race for the NASCAR Cup Series in Chicago looked to be in trouble when rain delayed the start, and the race was later shortened due to decreasing visibility, but race featuring several notable guest drivers was widely considered a success.

Three-times Australian Supercars champion, New Zealand Grand Prix winner and World Rally Championship points scorer Shane van Gisbergen became the first driver to win on his top-level NASCAR debut in 60 years, and did so despite falling as low as 17th at one point.

Van Gisbergen was not the only international motorsport star to join in, as 2009 F1 world champion Jenson Button made his second appearance in the series. Button made his NASCAR debut at the Circuit of the Americas earlier this year and also raced a modified Cup car at the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Button qualified eighth in Chicago, converted that into tenth place in stage one of the race, but was spun around while entering the pits in stage two and dropped back to 24th. In the remaining laps he could only make his way up to 21st.

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Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:


https://twitter.com/HSouthwellFE/status/1675825271964827649

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Comment of the day

Max Verstappen had to convince Red Bull to let him pit at the end of the Austrian Grand Prix for a set of fresh tyres so he could take the point for fastest lap away from his team mate Sergio Perez. He managed to make the pit stop without losing the lead, then set the fastest lap by over a second.

It was a massive gamble, not really worth it for a single point. There are all sorts of things which could have gone wrong, both in the pit stop and in a push lap to get the point.

That said, I’m glad they did it. It gave a little bit of jeopardy on the final lap, something worth watching. Without that, the result was decided already (post-race penalties notwithstanding). I won’t lie, I had everything crossed that something would go wrong and he’d drop to second place (or worse) through hubris, but even without that happening it definitely allowed the race to end on a higher point than it would otherwise.
Drmouse

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Mclarenfanjamm, Adam Dennehey and Adam!

On this day in motorsport

  • 30 years ago today Alain Prost scored his sixth and final home victory, for Williams at Magny-Cours

Author information

Ida Wood
Often found in junior single-seater paddocks around Europe doing journalism and television commentary, or dabbling in teaching photography back in the UK. Currently based...

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7 comments on “Sargeant relieved to “finally have a pretty competitive race again””

  1. It was funny to see SVG pulling the same moves on Nascar as he did in Supercars.
    It was almost unfair – the other guys didnt see it coming.

    1. Yeah the way he controlled the car was distinctly SVG; very smooth yet aggressive and throws in the overtakes where it’s unexpected, catching them all by surprise.

      I guess he was lucky to debut on a street circuit which is much more familiar to him than arguably anyone else on the grid; regardless of the car. I suspect an oval would’ve been much different. Great drive nonetheless.

      1. I guess he was lucky to debut on a street circuit

        @justrhysism – that was by design.

        Project 91 is Trackhouse Racing’s limited run entry that the team owner is using to promote Nascar, essentially because he feels like it. It’s the entry that Kimi Raikkonen has run twice. Completely made sense for SVG to run the car at Chicago but it still doesn’t take away from how impressive that drive was. Though I was amused when commentary highlighted that he wasn’t hindered by the steering wheel being on the wrong side of the car.

        The one interesting stat for me is that a road course ringer hadn’t won since 1973 – considering that I can think of multiple drivers entered specifically for the road courses over the last 25 years, I’m staggered that it’s been 50 years since the last time a road course only entry actually won.

  2. SVG!
    Who said Kiwis can’t fly?
    Fly in.
    Is this the car,?
    Yep.
    Miss pole by 0.15 seconds.
    “Ferrari style” strategic blunder drops to 18th.
    Guess I’ll just drive faster/smarter.
    Takes chequered flag for win.

    Gotta fly out now guys. See you next time.

    Oh say g’day to Jensen for me whenever he finishes.

  3. & I’m sure he’ll only get better as the season progresses, not that he’s necessarily underperformed anyway.

    Bringing the softest compound combination at Hungaroring is a good chance, although the C2-C4 combination was also good. Perhaps more strategic flexibility this way.

    COTD: Yes, definitely not without risks & despite ultimately nothing going wrong, I’m sure they’ll be more hesitant to make an extra stop for a single point with a similar lead again, or at least soon.

  4. @justrhysism
    I think the last driver to do it was John Sherman Rutherford lll , Lone Star JR, Johnny Rutherford.

    He went OK on ovals so maybe SVG could also.
    (Just tell him he couldn’t do it 😂.

    So in the spirit of that this may be of interest.
    I know the past has gone different world but I do respect those who could and would drive anything.
    Thank you

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