Formula 1 arrived in Japan and immediately faced difficulties: on the first day, teams could only complete one practice session out of two. Variable conditions between rain and dry weather rendered outings on dry and intermediate tires useless, preventing enough data collection in the second session. As a result, seven drivers opted not to appear on the track at all. On the Pin up you can find out where sports betting is offered with a large selection of events and high odds.
Such a situation is akin to a disaster for some, especially for outsiders like Williams
The team is desperately trying to emerge from the crisis, so every second on the track is crucial. Innovations are a luxury for them, so they have to economize on everything they can: the British team doesn’t even bring spare chassis to the Grand Prix, for which they paid the price in Australia.
There, Alex Albon crashed the car so badly that Williams had to go with just one car: they gave Albon the FW46 of his teammate Logan Sargeant in hopes of scoring points, but it didn’t work out.
And now, after such a failure, two weeks later, it was Sargeant who crashed the car in the first practice at Suzuka. Logan simply went off track on a straight and lost grip. Sargeant is not the first to make such a mistake. A couple of years ago, his predecessor Nicholas Latifi confused turns and blamed his car for the accident.
As a result, Sargeant damaged the gearbox, and suspension, and broke both the front and rear wings. Moreover, the last two were novelties without spare copies. The team had just exchanged the opportunity to prepare a spare chassis for these upgrades and declared them to the FIA. Marshals had to collect a lot of debris. Now all the team’s efforts fit into an ordinary plastic bag!
They couldn’t fix everything for the second practice, so the remaining weekend will see the American driver without sufficient data for setup and on the old version of the car.
The driver believes that “everything turned out better than it could have been”
Naturally, after the sessions, Logan couldn’t deny his fault, but even in such a situation, he found a reason for optimism: his current crash is nothing like last year’s.
“I chose a trajectory without even understanding where I was going. It’s a pretty silly mistake, to be honest. I shouldn’t allow this, especially in the first practice.
Fortunately, it doesn’t resemble last year’s mistakes, which were about trying to push to the limit. But still, I caused damage to the team. Fortunately, everything turned out better than it could have been.
Certainly, my confidence hasn’t been shaken. I came here after a week off feeling fresher and ready to work. In general, confidence is not lost. I wanted to hit myself after today, but nothing can be done now, just a visual mistake. I’ll continue to move forward tomorrow,” Sargeant noted.
Williams used roughly the same justification: No. 2 got lost on the track and couldn’t understand where he was going. The main thing, as noted by the team, is that this was not the type of mistake made last year when Sargeant went off track due to overly aggressive driving.
“The accident happened at the top of the hill, on the rise,” Williams team leader James Vowles said, “and Logan found it difficult to determine the exact position of the car on the track from the cockpit. As far as we can judge, Logan did not accurately understand where exactly he was on the track, and the grass was on the outside in the runoff area – and he simply drove along the grass with his wheel.
Honestly, Logan was in great spirits this week, both yesterday evening when I called him around 9-10 pm. He was in great spirits – he just wanted to get back behind the wheel of the car and get out on the track. But not to prove to the world that he deserves this place, but with the usual working mood.
And what was seen was not a mistake of the driver attacking at the limit. No, it was a different type of mistake, quite annoying because the driver did not push the car to the maximum. It could have gone much faster. It’s just that the pilot incorrectly assessed the position of the car on the track. So, no, this was not a consequence of what happened in Melbourne. This is just an unfortunate situation that can arise at any moment.”
Sargeant is the reigning Formula 1 champion for accidents
Last year, his crashes cost $4 million. This is more than anyone else in the peloton! The stages in the Netherlands and Japan were the most expensive for Williams – in both cases, Sargeant crashed the car both in qualifying and in the race.
The Dutch stage at Zandvoort cost $1.474 million. First, there was a serious crash in the third segment, and then in the race.
Japan cost the team slightly less: $1.112 million. Logan hit the wall in the first segment. And in the race, he retired due to damage after an awkward contact with Bottas.
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