Formula 1 qualifying in Imola was another disappointment for Logan Sargeant. After a driving error and a track limit violation, the Williams shaky candidate once again found himself without a lap time. The start by the grace of the race director is out of the question, but after the slight upward trend in Miami, the American is back down to earth in Italy. For him it was his seventh Q1 exit on the seventh race weekend of the season.
“It was just a difficult weekend. The wind kept changing over the course of the two days and the track deteriorated quite a bit. The grip was significantly less than in the third training session and that caused problems for some people, like me ” said Sargeant, who, together with his teammate Alex Albon, spent a long time in Q1 without a valid lap time. In the first attempt in the Villeneuve variant he lost the rear when changing direction and tobogganed through the gravel bed.
He did better in the final phase, but shortly afterwards he had to say goodbye to 17th place on the grid. A violation of the track limits cost him his only usable lap. The result: for the first time this year, Sargeant finished qualifying without a lap time. This had already happened to him four times in the 2023 season. At the qualifyings in Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Abu Dhabi as well as the Sprint Shootout in Qatar.
Sargeant is cheating with Imola in the Formula 1 car
In the qualifying dress rehearsal he still had hope by finishing 15th. “I think I did well on both days and felt like I was improving with every run,” said the 23-year-old about the training. The Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, which was unknown to him in a Formula 1 car, made his life more difficult than he had hoped.
The Grand Prix in Imola did not take place in 2023 after the region was partially flooded during heavy rainfall. “It was very difficult and not easy this weekend because I had never been here before,” said Sargeant, who did have the experience of driving in Imola in Formula 2 two years ago. He still had a hard time in Formula 1. “This track presented a lot of challenges. It’s pretty tricky to get a lap together here.”
In contrast to his teammate, he does not yet have the new underbody on his Williams FW46 in Imola. Albon came one lap further in Q1 with a lap time of 1:16.524 minutes in 14th place. Sargeant was about three tenths of a second slower on his invalid lap. He would have liked to have had the easier upgrade at the weekend. “Of course, weight makes a significant difference. The sooner I get it too, the better.”