Williams have confirmed Logan Sargeant will retain his seat within the team alongside Alexander Albon for 2024.
Sargeant competed in his rookie season in Formula 1 this year after the Williams junior driver was promoted to the world championship following a single season in F2 in 2022.It was a challenging rookie season for Sargeant, who became the first American driver to compete full time in the sport for over 15 years. Despite ending the season the lowest ranked driver of any who competed in the full championship, Sargeant took a single point in the United States Grand Prix – fittingly the first point scored by an American driver in three decades.
Despite team principal James Vowles admitting that there had been “elements of inconsistency” in his rookie driver’s performances, Vowles insisted that his team would not make a decision on Sargeant’s future at the team until the end of the season. After more consistent and promising performances in the final races of the season, Williams have announced that Sargeant will continue to race alongside Albon next season.
“I am pleased to continue our journey with Logan into the 2024 season,” Vowles said. “Logan has demonstrated immense skill whilst under the pressure of the world stage, making him a perfect fit for our team.
“We have great confidence in his abilities and believe that together we can achieve even greater success in the upcoming season.
Sargeant said he was “thrilled” to continue to race in Formula 1 next season.
“It has been an incredible journey with the team so far, and I am grateful for the opportunity to continue developing as a driver within such a talented and dedicated group,” he said.
“We have exciting plans for the future, and I can’t wait to contribute to the team’s success in the coming year.
Sargeant’s confirmation means that the grid for the 2024 season will remain entirely unchanged, with all ten teams retaining the same driver line ups that they ended 2023 with.
View the current list of 2024 F1 drivers and teams
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Jere (@jerejj)
1st December 2023, 17:01
As expected, not that I ever had any doubts.
At least all that annoying speculation by third-party individuals about other drivers (who were never realistic options anyway) will finally stop.
Dex
1st December 2023, 18:53
I’m pretty sure that even he himself had many doubts, as well as whoever decided to give him another contract.
Bobby (@shakenbake)
2nd December 2023, 3:03
I thought Williams could have agreed a loan deal with Aston Martin for Drugovich. His F2 championship last year was a considerable feat, backed up by very impressive testing/practice times in the AMR23 this year..
If not put him in green overalls, you’d think AM would at least want to keep his race fitness/form in check and give him some starts in a fellow team they have at least some relations with via Mercedes. It also stops them from looking elsewhere like Piastri had to do under Alpine when he was left on the sidelines for too long.
Sargent must be bringing in some decent $$$ for him to retain that seat imho. He’s not done enough to secure it on talent alone in my eyes.
Jere (@jerejj)
2nd December 2023, 6:11
@shakenbake If Williams were truly interested in Drugovich, they would’ve offered him a drive after shortly after his F2 champioship rather than long after with all recency freshness gone.
Ultimately, no team was seemingly interested to hire him as a full-time driver, probably because of how long winning that champioship took for him.
Besides, independent teams serving others is generally a past thing in F1, not to mention times have changed even at Williams under the current ownership, so fair enough that they prefer their academy drivers over serving other teams or manufacturers.
Btw, Sargeant isn’t a so-called pay driver to my knowledge.
MichaelN
1st December 2023, 17:33
Disappointing in general (though not specifically related to Sargeant).
Do we really need to see more of Bottas, Ricciardo, Hülkenberg, or Pérez? They’ve each done over 200 races and with one exception have won a handful of races, but never really got anywhere near a championship campaign. Even further down the list, there’s guys like Magnussen, Stroll, Ocon and Gasly who are all around that 150 races mark.
Apparently the F2 field has not that impressive this year (I didn’t follow it), and other ways of getting license points (Indycar and the WEC) don’t really have any drivers that are either interested in F1, or haven’t already been there.
It seems the anti-Verstappen license point system is cutting off the supply of new entrants. Maybe, and especially in light of Verstappen’s success, a simple age-requirement would have been sufficient.
Mark (@blueruck)
1st December 2023, 18:09
Zhou is the one I wonder about. He must come with a lot of $
Jere (@jerejj)
1st December 2023, 18:27
At least he’s performed decently well.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
2nd December 2023, 2:23
Yes, I don’t see how he’s any better than mick schumacher.
PacificPR (@streydt)
1st December 2023, 18:38
I do follow F2 and I am always amused by the comments about the quality of the field (fill in the year) since there are so many factors and variables that can give a skewed image. I for one think there are some very promising drivers amongst the current field, notably Bearman, Doohan, maybe Hadjar and Iwasa. However you can have all the talent in the world, what is the point if there aren’t any opportunities to show it. So yes I do think as well it’s a shame some of the ‘older’ generation keeps seats occupied while their careers are in a deadlock. At least at team like Haas and Sauber could have filled the seats with some new talent (I know Haas won’t) – Drugovich definitely deserves his chance.
MichaelN
2nd December 2023, 9:55
Thanks, as said I didn’t follow it and saw a whole bunch of negative comments after the finale and, over the season, not much in the way of viral moments.
It’s always been tough to get into F1, but these days teams pace such a huge premium on experience that potential rookies are in an especially tough spot.
Hotbottoms (@hotbottoms)
1st December 2023, 19:02
If you are trying to fill Formula One seats with drivers who are likely to have a succesful championship campaign in the future, then you’ll probably end up with several empty seats. The teams with best performance and/or most money lure the best drivers and the other teams are left picking best available options. As long as the other teams make their decision based on (assumed) performance and not money, I wouldn’t complain.
(Regarding Perez: Obviously there are several drivers who are better than Perez and wouldn’t hesitate to join RB. However, I still think there are several worse drivers in Formula One than Perez, so he wouldn’t be my first pick to leave the series altogether).
Gizzlina
1st December 2023, 18:16
First time all drivers are the same as previous year….Unless there will be a ‘silly season’
Steve Mepham
2nd December 2023, 12:09
I was wondering about this.
Is it really the first time that this has happened? I’ve been following F1 since the 60s and I can’t think of another occasion, but thought that might just be my fading memory!
Peter707
1st December 2023, 22:03
From Piquet Jr. to Schumacher Jr., second chances never worked with the untalented, but who cares? It is now almost a tradition at Williams to have the weakest driver of the field in one of their seats.
Justin (@vivagilles27)
2nd December 2023, 5:38
This is a good argument for Andretti joining the grid. Two more seats, on any team with four wheels, would give two very deserving drivers the chance. There are several drivers in history and on the grid that we can thank for that 22nd+ seat being available. Alonso at Minardi? Senna at Toleman? Vettel at Toro Rosso (the root of Minardi)? On merit I don’t think Sargeant deserves a seat over Liam Lawson, or perhaps Palou, O’Ward or many others. How are we going to find out now that we have a grid with zero new drivers in 2024? If you can name the constructors champion every year in the history of F1, I tip my cap to you. The drivers are the drama and meaning of this spot each weekend at the end of the year.
Coventry Climax
2nd December 2023, 14:44
I don’t really know Sargeant, but up to now, he seems a nice guy. He’s improved some, maybe, but I don’t know if all that would be enough for me to keep him. Ultimately, I’m fine with it though. We’ve had bigger ‘misfits’ filling seats multiple years, and in the end, the term might even turn out inappropriate for Sargeant.
I feel sorry for de Vries though. I’m sure he’s still scratching his head sometimes, with this news being one of those moments.
Janith
3rd December 2023, 6:15
Sargeant has been awful beyond belief. Nothing to praise here. Only Mazepin was worse in the last 15+ years. Both somehow finished 21st in a 20-driver championship
Coventry Climax
3rd December 2023, 13:44
Might be right, might be wrong; we’ll see.
I’m sure Williams have their reasons for it, and their decision making base is certainly different from what it was in the latter ‘Claire stages’, although I’m of the opinion that their position back then certainly wasn’t Claire Wlilliams’ fault alone, if any fault indeed and just the result of what she was given to work with in the first place.
Other than a seat taken, I don’t know if it makes all that much of a difference. Unless he turns out to have become even worse instead of any better next year. In which case he’ll be replaced anyway, but just a little later.
Might be that Vowles -and that would be rightly so- decided to focus on the biggest problems first, and not be distracted by dealing with too many issues at once, but I -nor you- have any way of telling.
Regarding the ‘seat taken’; that’s a bigger issue than one to blame on just a single team. The same applies to Aston Martin, for example, and other teams too, even though, possibly, to a lesser extent.
In a way, Perez’ peformance for example, is way worse than Sargeant’s, given the tools and experience available to work with.
MacLeod (@macleod)
4th December 2023, 7:54
De Vries went the wrong way he wanted to improve the car first….. but he should ignore the bad car and tried to drive as fast possible. Lots of those improvements came after de Vries suggestions.
He wasn’t one of those drivers who went fast first but he want to settle in a car which doesn’t work in F1
Timothy Otto Sperisen
4th December 2023, 6:29
I think it is time for F1 to expand to 3 drivers per team. The risk of a bother of seeing a red Bull threesome on a podium would be less than the chance of reward for all those who deserve a go but cant because of the Bottas’es etc of this world. Maybe they could make an exception for Monaco or use F3 cars there… just an idea looking at the grid..
Or adding a third car to the bottom 5 teams on the grid for more chances for data and strategy calls.