Correct decision imo. Give rookies one season to settle in and one to prove themself. But he definitely needs to up the ante.
Makes it officially first time drivers have remained same between seasons, I think.
Tbf we had a driver swap in the middle of this season, so it’s not 100% the same at the start of both years
Yeah, amazing stat and just shows you the challenge facing the current junior field. With the social media aspect mixed in, the investment in drivers is massive now and the costs to bringing new people in seem to make less and less sense
Not many teams can afford another Mazepin
I guess give him one more year but if he doesn’t challenge Albon maybe look elsewhere.
- Race: Alex Albon 18-3 Logan Sargeant (neither finished in Japan)
- Qualifying: Alex Albon 22-0 Logan Sargeant
Head to head numbers from: https://www.planetf1.com/news/f1-2023-head-to-head-qualifying-race-stats
Tbf to Logan, Albon’s car was often far more updated than Logan. I’m not saying that Logan would have beaten Albon, but a lot of the gap was car related.
Fully expected but strange that they waited so long. Seems like they were holding out for another option and nothing appeared.
Overall this is a great signing for them. It continues to build faith in their academy program, which hopefully should prove itself in the future. If they had dropped Sargeant for a RB/Merc Junior it would have definitely played against them for prospective signings.
He’s shown flashes of speed (was it Jeddah qualy where he had a great lap that got deleted?) and seems to have gotten his crashing under control during the second half of the season.
He’s not been close to Albon, but at this point i rate Albon really highly so that doesn’t mean too much. He was good in both karting and junior series, so there is potential there, and by all accounts the team seems to love working with him so it makes sense to keep him on for another year instead of resetting.
He will have to step up and show improvement next year, though.
Good luck, Sargeant.