Williams: We want Sargeant in F1 car next year

I have to say I'm really impressed with James Vowles. The way he leads the team by example and shields them from unfair or unjust criticism is just refreshing to see. Williams seem to have a long term plan and want to stick with it, which seems very reasonable to me in this kind of environment. You won't make any significant progress by changing direction every couple of months.

I also appreciate the context they provide which is especially important in such a competitive sport. I really hope Sargeant can continue to improve, he seems like a good kid and I wouldn't want to change seats with him. You could feel the pressure when he tried to force a correction in suzuka qualifying by just using brute force in the last corner. you could feel the desperation and it was horrible.

Oh, and one other issue. I think the incident in the race with bottas was at least 50/50 between the two. If you watch the replay, sargeant already locks up his front right before valteri is even alongside him and it only got worse after that. Once he unloaded the front left and locked up, there was no stopping the car before the apex. valteri never had a chance making it on the outside. Sure, sargeant locked up, but valteri can't say he was surprised by this since the lock up already started before he overtook him.

Bottas could easily have not seen the lock up, so to say it's 50/50 is a stretch, really. To me, Sargeant is still completely at fault, but it's obvious it's a rookie mistake rather than actually dangerous driving, so it doesn't really make him a bad driver.
- That seems fairly obvious and hard to miss.

I think it sets a good precedent that rookies get a chance to get a couple of seasons. If you write off a rookie half way through the season then you're not going to get any confidence from any future rookies. Plus there's fuck all testing time now, so a lot of the season is just getting used to the car.

Logan has very clear targets that he has to hit before the end of the season and we're working with him continuously,

I read that as they haven’t given up hope yet but are by no means saving the seat for him if he can’t get his shit together.

I never thought about it, but what will happen if a team hits that year’s budget cap, and the driver crashes? Will they be allowed to spend more to repair the car?

The driver races on foot obviously
It's more of a "let's review what you spent last year" than a rolling totalization. So if a team was really that concerned they could abstain from a race, but I imagine they have stuff budgeted much better than that, even the shit show teams
No, they wouldn't be given an extra budget. That would defeat the purpose of the cost cap. If they go over it they will get penalized accordingly. Spare parts are part of the cost cap for a reason. If a team knows they would go over the budget by building a spare part they have to make the decision on whether to take the penalty or not participate in the race.

I tried to find out the exact dates but I couldn't find it so I have to make assumption. I just highly doubt the financial season of the cost cap ends with the last race. I assume the season will roll over some time later. So any team would budget a proper safety buffer for spare parts which they can just burn in development after the last race. And adjust their budget for mid-season development if there have been more crashes than anticipated. In a normal season spare parts from crashes make up less than 5 mil, which is about 3.5% of the cost cap.

Also don't forget that a lot of the more expensive parts teams still have used ones lying around. If an engine blows in the last 1-2 races I doubt they will build a new one and just re-use an old one. Same with gearboxes, power units, and some other parts. Especially if they are aware they are uncomfortably close to the cost cap.

I'm glad they are supportive but at the end of the day, the budget only goes so far. If they are spending budget on repairs that's less money for development. Which means a slower car, and even less money next year.

I hope he comes right because he seems like a nice guy and it would be good to see an American driver in F1 long term.

I feel like all rookies should get at least 1.5 seasons before you look elsewhere. If there’s little to no improvement then drop them but dropping rookies off the grid because they don’t exceed expectations in a back market is ridiculous. Especially since there is fuck all testing time anymore

Not convince me that Sargeant wants to be in an F1 car despite the rate he crashes out of races.

How many crashes had he been in this season?