Sargeant facing ‘tough targets to get much closer to Albon’

Logan Sargeant must hit “tough targets” to keep his place at Williams, says team principal James Vowles, as rumours link Andrea Kimi Antonelli to his seat.

Vowles said there is no immediate plans to replace Sargeant after it emerged the FIA had been asked to allow Mercedes junior Antonelli to make his F1 debut before he is old enough to under the rules.

“I haven’t spoken to Kimi since Abu Dhabi last year,” said Vowles. “Hopefully that puts it in context. I know nothing about what’s going on at Mercedes’ tests right now. We are looking, as everyone else is, for where we want to be on driver line-up for next year and we have our own young driver programme.

“In the case of Kimi, I can’t really adjudicate on the level he’s at. In case of him coming into the car this year, I’ve always said from the beginning, it’s a meritocracy.

“Logan has to earn his seat. At the moment, he has some tough targets where he has to get much closer to Alex. But there is nothing on the radar at the moment for replacing him.”

Asked in yesterday’s FIA press conference whether the team want Antonelli to drive for them before the year is over, Vowles said: “I’m sure there’s a desire.”

However, he added, “we have far bigger problems to solve than drivers at the moment.

“Alex has done championship-level drives and at the moment he’s not scoring points and fundamentally we have it on us to improve our car going forward. That’s my primary concern more than anything else and what we do with drivers going into ’25, ‘26.”

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“There are options on the table, but it is far too early to tell,” he added. “In the sense of Kimi, you have to remember it’s just 20 months ago he was in a Formula 4 car. That’s a large, large step up into a Formula 1 car in such a short space of time.”

Vowles said Sargeant needs to continue the progress he showed at the end of last season to secure his place in their line-up.

“At the end of the year, he came close to Alex, which is what I wanted him to do, but that progression had to continue. He had to be at the point where he’s not sitting a tenth behind him, but rather challenging him and out-qualifying him and out-racing him, fundamentally. We’re still on that journey.

“What Logan has as a challenge, fundamentally, in front of him is enormous. We can’t underrate where Alex is as a driver. He was, I think, underrated before and he’s a brilliant, brilliant driver in his own entity.

“In terms of Logan, what I’ve been asking for him is, despite the pressures of the world, the pressures we’ve created, the pressures I’ve created, the pressure all of you have created, you need to pull that all and put it behind you and make sure you’re now out there fighting and out-qualifying Alex, pushing the team forward as a result of things. And those targets effectively are encompassed in a number of other, more formal ways of putting it.

“Without doubt, this is a tough field. There’s no doubt about it. But as I said all the way through, it’s meritocracy, earn your place. Now, he’s got more work to do, but he’s also one of the top 20 Formula 1 drivers in the world on the grid. And there’s a reason for that.

“Here in Miami at his home Grand Prix, I’m putting him on my shoulders and supporting him because that’s what we should be doing at this point. He’s in the car. He’ll remain in the car. And my job here is supporting him.”

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