Yahoo Autos Sargeant rues ‘millimeter mistake’ in Q3 crash
Logan Sargeant says he “shattered” what has been a promising Dutch Grand Prix weekend for him so far with “a millimeter mistake” during qualifying.
The American made it through to Q3 for the first time in his career with the final lap of Q2, with Williams looking particularly strong at Zandvoort despite low expectations heading into the event. However, after he and teammate Alex Albon had completed their first timed laps of Q3 on slick tires on a drying track, Sargeant crashed heavily at Turn 2 after getting slightly off-line and says it’s undone a lot of his good work so far.
“It’s just tough,” Sargeant said. “Fine margins in those conditions. The last thing I ever want to do is leave the team with a boat load of damage. I’m doing my best to deliver good results. I think there’s been so many positives this weekend. Yesterday in the dry, I feel like I was really pretty much right there. I think the long-run pace was really good. We’ve had the car in a great window.
“Even Q1, Q2, I missed a little bit of pace today in the wet, but I think the biggest positive for me is delivering laps when I needed to. That’s something I’ve lacked this year, and to be able to do that has been really nice today. But yeah, it’s all just shattered by a millimeter mistake.”
Sargeant admits he doesn’t know why Williams is as competitive as it is, but he’s focusing on converting what he hopes will be his first top-10 start into his first points in Formula 1.
“I don’t think we’re completely sure. We didn’t expect this (track) to be a great one for us,” he admitted. “It’s important to understand why. That’s something we’ll dig into. Just mixed emotions — definitely bittersweet.
“I think from my point of view, I need to look back at it, see what I did wrong first of all, see if there was just a tiny mistake that was unavoidable or if it was a mindset thing; I haven’t quite understood it yet, but I need to figure that out. And then not dwell on it, because our long-run pace was great yesterday. Hopefully get the car rebuilt as close as we can, and try to utilize that with the good long-run pace that we have and try to score some points. That’s the goal.
“I put myself in the position to be in the top 10; I also put the team in a position with a damaged car. There’s ups and downs. You’ve got to take them as they come, roll with the punches. I’ll do whatever I can tonight to help and then hopefully deliver a perfect race tomorrow to make up for it.”
Should Sargeant be able to take up his place in the top 10, it will make him the first American to have started from there for 30 years, following Michael Andretti’s ninth place at the 1993 Italian Grand Prix.
