Sargeant apologises to De Vries after ‘pretty weird’ crash ends both their races in Australia

Logan Sargeant was quick to issue an apology to Nyck de Vries following the Australian Grand Prix, after the Williams driver ran into the back of the AlphaTauri man at the final standing restart, putting both of them out on the spot.

In a race full of Safety Cars and red flags, Sargeant locked up his front tyres under braking for Turn 1 when the action resumed with two laps to run, meaning there was “nothing I could do” to avoid taking out his fellow F1 rookie.

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Speaking after the race, Sargeant commented: “The last restart was pretty weird. I felt like I braked where I did on the previous two starts, but it just seemed like nothing was up to temperature, the brakes, tyres.

“I hit the pedal and it was immediate, both fronts locked, and there was nothing I could do from there. Sorry to Nyck, I didn’t want to end the day like that – it was a tough enough day as it was.”

Offering his response to Sargeant’s apology, De Vries said: “It can happen. Everyone can make a mistake and a misjudgement, and it’s a racing incident. We’ll move on and hope for a better race next time.”

Prior to the incident, Sargeant and De Vries were left to rue tyre-related struggles around the Albert Park track, while the latter was also briefly sent airborne in a clash with Alpine rival Esteban Ocon.

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“I think when we were on the right tyre, which was the hard tyre, we actually had pretty good pace there. I felt like we were in a good place, the car was in a good spot,” explained Sargeant.

“But we tried to restart from the first red flag on the mediums. It just wasn’t the tyre to be on – a lot of graining, it fell away really quickly. That was really the end of our race, unfortunately, but I felt like once we got on the right tyre we were good.”

De Vries added: “We did well in the beginning on the hards to kind of hold on, and I saw it coming towards us, because a lot of medium starters went quickly to the hard, when the Safety Car came out.

“But then when the red flag came out, all the medium starters got a free pit stop to the hards, then we had to complete our mandatory pit stop and went to the mediums.

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“With the incident with Ocon, I damaged my front wing, so basically I drove around the whole race with a broken front wing, meaning that I picked up front graining very early, so it was just a mess.”

Sargeant and De Vries’s DNFs mean they leave Melbourne propping up the 2023 standings as the only two drivers yet to log a point this season.