Max Verstappen jokes he would ‘flatten’ his car and leave in Logan Sargeant’s position

Jamie Woodhouse
Williams driver Logan Sargeant in the garage at the Australian Grand Prix.

Williams driver Logan Sargeant.

Max Verstappen sympathises with the sidelined Logan Sargeant, saying he “would be on the plane home right now” if he were in the Williams driver’s position.

Williams has not put together a spare chassis for the early rounds of the F1 2024 campaign, which left them with a major headache after Alex Albon suffered a big shunt during the opening practice session at the Australian Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen jokes would have wrecked his car and left

While Albon was thankfully unharmed by the incident, the same was not true for his Williams FW46, with his chassis deemed irreparable at the track.

Williams therefore decided to hand Sargeant’s car over to Albon – who scored 27 of Williams’ 28 points last season – for the remainder of the Australian Grand Prix, leaving Sargeant, through no fault of his own, to watch on from the garage.

Red Bull’s three-time World Champion Verstappen said he would be catching his flight home early in Sargeant’s situation, joking he’d also wreck his car before it could be given to his team-mate.

“From the performance aspect, I understand it of course, but that does not take away from the fact that this obviously sucks for Logan,” Verstappen is quoted by AD.

“I am obviously not in that position, but I would be on the plane home right now. If that happened to me I would also completely flatten mine, nobody can drive [laughs].

“But in my situation, of course, that’s really not going to happen, which I think also makes sense.”

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To Sargeant’s credit, he has not headed for home and instead remains in Australia to support his Williams team, despite describing their decision as the “hardest moment” of his career.

“This is the hardest moment I can remember in my career and it’s absolutely not easy,” he said.

“I am, however, completely here for the team and will continue to contribute in any way that I can this weekend to maximise what we can do.”

Albon, who has described Sargeant as a “true gentleman” and “true team player” regarding his reaction to this painful turn of events, went on to put the sole remaining Williams P12 on the grid in Melbourne.

That sees him share the sixth row with seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton, who was all out of sorts with the Mercedes W15’s “inconsistency”.

Read next: Alex Albon admits Williams atmosphere ‘not pleasant’ amid fallout of Logan Sargeant swap