Heartbreaking news delivered to Logan Sargeant in home US race after latest Q1 exit

The disappointment was clear in Logan Sargeant’s voice as he missed the cut for Q2 by the finest of margins at the Miami Grand Prix, on a race weekend where speculation over his future has been rife.

Sargeant outqualified Williams team-mate Alex Albon for the first time in Miami Sprint qualifying, his home race, though the talk surrounding Sargeant instead focused on a potential threat that Mercedes junior Kimi Antonelli could replace him before the F1 2024 campaign is over.

Logan Sargeant comes oh so close to Miami GP Q2 appearance

PlanetF1.com understands that a dispensation request has been lodged with governing body the FIA for Antonelli to get his super licence before hitting the minimum required age of 18, though Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff flatly denied that it came from them. Williams boss James Vowles failed to do the same, despite throwing his support behind Sargeant.

Making the cut for Q2 would have been a great way to dull the speculation for Sargeant, so it made for sad listening as his race engineer confirmed that he had not done so, by just 0.034s.

“Are we good? Come on, please tell me we’re in,” said Sargeant over team radio at the end of his last Q1 attempt.

After receiving the heartbreaking news, the deflation was evident in Sargeant’s voice as he responded: “Oh, what a shame.”

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Nonetheless, Sargeant will now turn his focus to Sunday’s Grand Prix, as he looks to ditch that nagging voice in his head telling him that he could have got more out of qualifying.

“I think it was a decent drive,” he told media after Q1, “of course I can say I could have squeezed a bit more out of it, got through to Q2.

“But most importantly, I feel like the changes we made between the Sprint race and qualy were in the right direction which will ultimately help us for tomorrow. But yeah, I was happy with what I did today, I just wish I could have gotten a little bit more out of it.

“I mean, jumping into FP1 this weekend was the most comfortable I felt all year and I feel like I was straightaway on it.

“And if I look since Australia, I feel like it’s been going relatively well, Japan getting almost everything out of it. Of course, China was disappointing, but again here today, I feel like I did a good job, just looking for that lap time.”

Vowles has stressed that Sargeant’s place in the Williams line-up is under no immediate threat and when asked if all of this Antonelli talk is serving as a “distraction”, Sargeant replied: “No, I wouldn’t say it’s a distraction.

“I talked to James internally, I talked to my manager.”

Williams are still waiting for their first point of the F1 2024 campaign.

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