Sargeant says retiring ‘the last thing I wanted to do’ as he explains Qatar GP struggles

Logan Sargeant has shared some initial comments after pulling out of last weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix, with illness in the build-up to the event contributing to his discomfort behind the wheel.

Sargeant sent several radio messages to the Williams pit wall expressing that he felt unwell during a particularly hot and humid race at the Lusail International Circuit, ultimately returning his car to the pits after 40 of the 57 scheduled laps.

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Williams subsequently confirmed that Sargeant had been suffering from “intense dehydration weakened by having flu-like symptoms earlier in the week”, with the youngster assessed and cleared by the on-site medical team.

“The main thing is Alex and I are both okay,” said Sargeant post-race. “I’ve been feeling unwell all week which didn’t help with the dehydration in this heat.

“The last thing I wanted to do was retire the car, but I had to put my health first. Sorry to the team for not being able to reach the finish line. They’ve done an incredible job all weekend in these intense conditions.”

With another home race coming up, he added: “I’ll be taking [the] next week to fully recover and then bounce back in Austin, which I’m really looking forward to.”

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Sargeant’s team mate, Alex Albon, finished the race in 13th position, and he too visited the medical team for checks due to acute heat exposure, before being cleared.

“Firstly, I’m glad Logan is okay as it’s never easy to retire from a race,” Albon commented. “I think this race goes down as one of the toughest of the year, as I suffered with heat exposure myself.

“Our pace was pretty strong, but I need to review what happened, as we were in what felt like a good position, but we ended up falling out of the points. We also struggled with a bit of an overheating cockpit, so we’ll also need to review this.”

With Alfa Romeo taking a double top 10 finish from Sunday’s race, Williams’ advantage in the battle for P7 in the constructors’ championship has been reduced to seven points ahead of the final five rounds.

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“The gap to our competitors is closing, so it’s a tough weekend to walk away from,” added Albon, who had scored two points in the Sprint. “We’ll review the data and see what happened.”