Vowles gives Sargeant an ultimatum in order to save his seat for 2025

Williams Racing Team Principal James Vowles has admitted that the team need more from Logan Sargeant if he is to stay with the team next season.

Sargeant has had quite a difficult time so far in his F1 career. Having only scored 1 point over the course of 31 races, The American driver’s record against his team-mate is a pretty bleak one.

Albon has out qualified Sargeant and finished ahead of his team-mate in every grand prix since the F3 and F2 race winner made his debut back at the start of 2023.

With question marks looming over Sargeant’s future in the sport, the Williams Team Principal spoke to formula1.com during the Canadian Grand Prix and admitted that the young American driver has taken a step forward, however, he needs to do more in order to stay with the team for 2025.

“I think there’s no doubt, second year of running, and you are now seeing the confidence start to build as a result of it, and there is performance there,” said Vowles.

“We also haven’t had the cars in the same spec for a period of time. Some of that’s still due to the earlier damage that we’re building up to, some of that is because we pulled forward upgrades, and there was simply not enough to put across two cars.”

“He is continuously evolving as an individual, as I hope he would be in that circumstance. Is he where I need him to be target-wise? And that’s the big question of things. We need more from him, really, to be able to save his seat in that sort of circumstance.”

Could Sainz be the man to replace him?

Vowles has teased that Carlos Sainz could be Sargeant’s replacement at Williams next season. The Spaniard is currently without a seat for 2025 and rumours suggest that the Grove outfit could potentially announce the signing of the 29-year-old at the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend.

However, with this still being unconfirmed and simply just a rumour for now, Vowles has expressed some glowing words about Sainz, with the Williams boss even admitting that he is there number one target.

“That bit I can say. The number one target is Carlos,” said Vowles.

“He’s a race-winning driver that last year against all odds beat Max [Verstappen] in Singapore with a brilliant drive, and that’s not the first time. He’s intelligent how he approaches things, logical, incredibly quick.”

“What he did this year in Shanghai… It’s going to sound like a negative, it’s not… In qualifying he crashed and we’ve all been there to a certain extent, [but] it’s an impressive athlete that can reset themselves, go back out and then beat your team mate in that condition.”

“I think that shows you just how strong he is as a driver, and I think any team on the grid would be fortunate to have someone like Carlos alongside them.”

Feature Image Credit: (Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)