Vowles: F1 rookies in 'different world'

Williams Team Principal James Vowles has insisted Logan Sargeant isfully deserving of a second season in F1 after overcoming adifficult rookie season. The American driver was not announced asAlex Albon's teammate for a second consecutive campaign until afterthe season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix following an up-and-downseason. Rookies entering F1 are limited to the running they cancomplete before making their bows, unlike in years gone by beforein-season testing was banned and Vowles believes this has madeentering the sport more difficult. “In the old days – I don’t knowhow to describe old days, five years ago, six years ago – what weused to do is do about 30,000 kilometres of testing with a driverbefore you’d even consider putting them in the race car,” Vowlestold the Speedcafe KTM Summer Grill. “They need enough [time andexperience] that they can explore the boundaries and limits of itbecause the step from any other motorsport series into this one isenormous. “To put numbers on it, F2 and even IndyCar for thatmatter, would be about 14 seconds behind on a lap time, so you’rein a different ballpark to what you’re experiencing here. “And ittakes the drivers time to extract everything out of the tyres.“Just focusing on the tyres for a second because that is thepredominant item, you’re trying to get all four tyres within a fewdegrees of their optimum temperature – the window is only aboutfour or five degrees. “You’re trying to focus on that whilst tryingto manhandle a car at 300 kilometres an hour on a circuit. It’sjust a different world and it takes quite a while.” DestabalisedSargeant's inaugural year in F1 showed glimpses of the strong pacethat earned him the requisite finish in F2 the season before togrant him his space on the grid, though frequent errors threatenedto derail any progress being made. “He started the year actuallyreally strong,” explained Vowles, who joined the team in Februaryhaving left his role as Mercedes Strategy Director. “I think, and Isaid the same to him, might have been his undoing a little bit aswell. He became perhaps overconfident that 'this is going to beokay'. “In Bahrain, he was qualifying with Lando [Norris], withinthe same millisecond, in Saudi he put in a lap time that was fasterthan Alex, but deleted for track limits. “Then you saw some otheraspects of being a rookie. As soon as you take something [that] candestabilise your foundations, you question everything, which iswhat happened in Saudi – lap deleted, which shouldn’t be a problem,we had plenty more laps to be able to get in, but that destabilisedhim. “Then what you saw is, to get the same lap time out of thecar, he was having to really overdrive the car quite a bit. “By theway, that’s a very normal thing for a rookie to do, that’s not aninsult, it’s just when you aren’t sure where the limit is, it’seasier to go slightly over it, and then you get really punished forit. “That happened all the way up through the season until westarted to get towards the end. “Then, around Suzuka time, youwould have seen a different Logan.” Sargeant 'building into it' Thefrequent incidents for Sargeant left him with an underdeveloped carcompared to teammate Albon by the time they reached the finalthroes of the campaign. But in Japan, despite another crash inqualifying, the pace demonstrated proved he was beginning to get togrips with the Williams. “But his performance there was back on parwith Alex for the car spec he had," added Vowles. “And I’d say fromthere onwards, at the end of the season, you’ll see a driver that’snow building into it, not overdriving the vehicle, in control ofwhat he’s doing. “The point in Austin was because he didn’t throwthings away just trying to do a Hail Mary to go one position up, hejust kept it together on track, didn’t get track limits, did asolid job. “Vegas qualifying, within the same tenth – in fact, fromthat point onwards, you’ll see his pace is there, but our carperformance dropped off so significantly now that points justsimply weren’t available to us. “That’s my summary of Logan, but italso helps to understand why he’s absolutely deserving of a chanceagain,” he added. “There’ll be a bit of a reset over the winter,there always is, but he’s matured significantly through theseason.”