F1 star costs team 'quadruple his wages' in car damage

Zhou Guanyu British GP crash — Photo: © LAT Images

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F1 star costs team 'quadruple his wages' in car damage

Logan Sargeant's rookie year has proven to be a rather costly one for Williams

Becky Hart

Friday 1 December 2023 13:57 Updated: 18:34

Logan Sargeant cost Williams more than four times his salary in car damages during the 2023 season.

Crashes are part and parcel of F1 – from the multi-car pile ups at the start of a race, to overtakes gone awry. Some of these are more embarrassing than others – but all of them add up.

They take on a toll on the team in terms of spare parts, rebuild time between sessions and of course the repair bill during the era of ever tightening cost caps.

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As ever, there were plenty of memorable crashes in the most recent F1 season – Carlos Sainz hitting the water valve cover being one costly example, while Sergio Perez didn’t cover himself in glory at his home race when he was pitched up into the air and out of the race.

Sergio Perez's crash at his home race was dramatic to watch

Logan Sargeant has cost his team a lot of money in repairs this season

Sargeant racks up significant bill

But they didn’t cost their respective teams nearly as much as Logan Sargeant.

The American rookie might have one of the smallest salaries on the grid, but the amount of damage he accumulated at Williams this year was eye-watering.

According to a table originally assembled by Reddit user u/basspro24chevy, the 22-year-old cost Williams £3.4million ($4333,000) in damages just to his FW45.

Logan Sargeant crashed with worrying regularity

Logan Sargeant watched more than one session from the sidelines

How Sargeant's crashes harm the 2024 Williams car

After he crashed out in qualifying in Japan, with driver error to blame in the high-speed incident that wrecked both his front and rear wings, breaking the suspension for good measure, his team boss James Vowles highlighted just how costly these mistakes were becoming.

“Under the cost cap, what you don’t want to be doing is overproducing parts," he said. "We’ve had more attrition than expected, I think it’s fair to say... It means we’ll have to divert attention away from other items [for 2024] while producing more spare parts before the end of the year.”

Williams had their most successful season since 2017 as they came home seventh overall, largely courtesy of Alex Albon who was regularly in the points. By contrast, Sargeant scored just the solitary point in his maiden campaign.

The American remains without a confirmed seat for 2024, the team keeping tight lipped on whether the rookie did enough to be granted a second year in the sport. And given his damages bill, it’s easy to see why keeping him on isn’t a straightforward decision.

F1 Sergio Perez Carlos Sainz Williams Logan Sargeant