How Franco Colapinto Proved a Better Driver Despite Repeating Mistake That Caused Logan Sargeant’s Sacking

When Logan Sargeant was shown the exit door at Williams after Zandvoort, many thought it was due to his lack of pace compared to his teammate Alex Albon. But that’s not entirely true.

One of the biggest reasons for Sargeant’s premature exit was his frequency of crashes that cost the team dearly. As a result, team boss James Vowles brought in Franco Colapinto to replace the American, hoping that things would go differently with the Argentine driver.

But even Colapinto seemed to have a rough start to his F1 career as only in his second race in Baku, he crashed in the first free practice session. However, he still managed to complete the rest of the weekend on a high by scoring his first points in F1.

And that is exactly where Sargeant failed at Williams. Whenever he had a crash in one of the early sessions, his whole weekend would just spiral down from there due to his losing confidence. F1 pundit Aldas spoke about this contrast between the two drivers in a recent video on his YouTube channel.

“When Franco crashed [in Baku], he could have gone into the exact same spiral that we’ve seen Sargeant going into countless times, but he didn’t. A driver sometimes needs to have short-term amnesia, that ability to block out and forget a crash or mistake that you just made,” Aldas remarked.

“Franco was able to do exactly that by the time he got into qualifying. He was right on the pace with both drivers getting into Q3,” added Aldas.

Not only did Colapinto get through to Q3 in Baku, but he even out-qualified Albon, something that hasn’t happened since the British Grand Prix in 2022 (although it has to be noted that Albon was let down by Williams in Q3 when they left a cooling fan attached to his car before his final run).

Can Colapinto find himself a place on the grid in 2025?

Colpainto finished P8 in Baku and scored four points, which is three more than what Sargeant managed in his entire stint with Williams. The Argentine was again looking strong in Singapore but just missed on points with a P11 finish.

However, that’s not to say he didn’t impress. His brave move down into Turn 1 at the start of the race even left Albon agitated. In only three races, Colapinto has impressed everybody in the paddock and now he is even being considered for the last remaining open spot on the grid for 2025 at Sauber/Audi.

The Argentine is currently in contention with the likes of Valtteri Bottas (Sauber’s current driver), Gabriel Bortoleto (McLaren’s junior driver currently leading the F2 championship), and former Haas driver Mick Schumacher.