Sargeant pleased to show his potential with sixth after “irritating” qualifying results

Logan Sargeant said qualifying seventh for the Las Vegas Grand Prix has ended an “irritating” run of being unable to maximise Williams’ potential.

Sargeant reached Q3 for the second time this season at his final home grand prix of the year. Unlike his only previous top 10 appearance, in Zandvoort, where he crashed during a flying lap, Sargeant was able to set a time and secured seventh place, just under two tenths of a second behind team mate Alex Albon.

Sargeant said afterwards that he was “definitely a very happy boy.”

“I just feel like, especially to execute over three separate sessions, finally extracting this potential that we’ve had and to do it here in Vegas is extra-special. And I think highlighted by the fact we have a great car here.

“It’s not easy to deliver on that performance. So the fact we were able to do that and continuously do that through the whole qualifying session is is awesome.”

While some teams struggled to adapt to the new street circuit, Sargeant said Williams found it suited their car increasingly well as the grip levels improved. “When we showed up today and the track really started to grip up, it started to come more and more towards our car. And to be honest, it’s becoming more and more fun to drive every session as the grip is coming.

“I don’t think we could have done a whole lot more today. I think we extracted everything very well. And most importantly, we have two cars at the front of the grid to try and keep there. So just hats off to everyone in the team. Everyone’s worked hard, knew this weekend was a good opportunity and we’re off to the right start.”

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He said Williams’ competitive pace in Las Vegas had given him “a bit of a buffer” to get through the first stage of qualifying. “[It] just let me not have to put it so on the limit in Q1 and risk a mistake. So that was nice, I could really build through the session and just leave myself in a good spot to really put a good lap in every time.”

Following Carlos Sainz Jnr’s grid penalty, Sargeant will join his team mate on the third row of the grid. He says their race pace gives them reason to be optimistic they can convert their third row lock-out into points finishes.

“We’ve had great race pace the past three or four races and [we’ll] try to keep that up, see what we can do tomorrow. [We] want to continue this and have a great day tomorrow.

“I think we have a very annoying car down the straights for others so we’ll try and use that to our advantage.”

He said achieving his best qualifying performance to date on home ground “means a lot,” but he felt more relieved to finally show his potential in the car.

“I think after putting so much hard work into trying to be able to do these things it’s very irritating when, in the past rounds, you see the potential, but you don’t do it,” Sargeant explained. “I came today and just didn’t want to look at anyone else but myself. Not focussed on anyone else, just drive the best I can. I’m obviously happy to have delivered in three sessions.”

Although “qualifying in the past has always been my strongest point, obviously it’s not been easy this year,” he admitted. “So I’ve been working on it to try and be as clean as I can. Also spoke with the team about the approach and ways to build through the weekend.”

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2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix

• Tost blames track inspection oversight for Sainz’s damage in Las Vegas
• Hard to repeat “rare” combination of factors behind Vegas shunt – Norris
• Las Vegas Grand Prix “got a lot more hate than it deserved” – Sargeant
• Williams’ “incredible” Vegas qualifying made us “poor” in race – Vowles
• Piastri is first rookie to take two fastest laps in a season since Hamilton

Browse all 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix articles