Once again the weekend started busy for
Williams
in
Formula 1
. Logan
Sargeant
suffered a major accident in the first practice of the Japanese Grand Prix and put the historic British team in trouble again. The curious thing is that the car that the American driver broke is the same one that his teammate, the Thai
Alex Albon
, had destroyed, and that ended up leaving the Florida native unable to participate in the Australian GP on March 24.
"Sorry
," Sargeant managed to say as soon as he crashed his unit into the retaining wall after having stepped on the outside of the runway with his right tires.
SHOCKING HIT BY SARGEANT AND RED FLAG IN JAPAN'S FIRST PRACTICE!! The American DESTROYED his Williams after stepping on the outside with the right tires...
📺 The #F1 season, by #StarPlusLA pic.twitter.com/zOMSge6RsR
— SportsCenter (@SC_ESPN) April 5, 2024
The curious thing is that, in case the mechanics cannot fix the car,
Sargeant could be left without racing for the second consecutive race
. Two weekends ago he had to watch the competition at the Albert Park circuit from the pits after he had to hand over his car to Albon, who had destroyed his in practice on Friday.
In what Sargeant called "the most difficult moment" of his career, F1's only American driver missed Saturday's qualifying and Sunday's race at the Albert Park circuit. The reason?
Williams decided that Albon had more chances of scoring points.
An excessive punishment, since he ended up paying for someone else's mistake. Albon had lost control of his drive and slid into the walls in the first practice session before bouncing to the other side of the track. He was uninjured, but did not participate in the second session while Williams checked whether his car could be repaired. The team eventually decided to have the car return to the team's base in England.
Thus, after confirming that the team had not brought a third spare chassis to the event, Williams replaced Sargeant, who thus missed his first GP since his debut in the category in 2023. Now, perhaps conditionally, the one He made the mistake, although with his partner's "cursed" car. Sargeant got into the car in Suzuka that had to be repaired in Oxfordshire, while Albon continues with the car that belonged to the American until Australia.
The Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez were the fastest in the first activity of the weekend on the traditional Japanese circuit.