Williams accept ‘harsh but correct’ penalty for Sargeant

Williams team principal James Vowles said they must develop better tools to prevent a repeat of the penalty Logan Sargeant received last weekend.

Sargeant was given a 10-second time penalty, plus two endorsement points on his licence, for what the stewards described as overtaking under the Safety Car.

The incident occured when Sargeant and Nico Hulkenberg crossed Safety Car Line Two side-by-side while the Safety Car was deployed. The Haas driver was leaving the pits and Sargeant was approaching on the track as they reached the line, making it difficult to judge which was ahead.

It transpired Sargeant overtook Hulkenberg fractionally after they crossed the line. He did not realise this and his team was unable to tell he had done so, leading to his penalty.

“It was a harsh penalty, when you see just matters of tenths translate into seconds, that’s difficult,” said Vowles in a video released by the team. “More so, it’s very difficult for the driver to adjudicate whether he was ahead or behind.

“The responsibility falls to us and we missed it. We need to develop more and better automated tools that allow us to see what’s going on at that point because it took us multiple camera replays before even we could see where the difference was. From the onboards, which we have video for, you couldn’t tell who was ahead and who was behind.”

Vowles said the team accepts the penalty. “The way penalties work is when it’s in-race like that, there’s nothing you can do. You can’t appeal it. Once the penalty has been provided and given,it’s over effectively, it’s adjudicated by the FIA.

“Their adjudication was correct. We were behind at the line. Those are facts.”

He said the team will work on improving how it handles such cases in future. “What we have to do is improve our system and processes to make sure we catch that faster, because you can correct it.

“Logan would have to have slowed down during that initial incident, a few seconds later, let the car back through again, and then that would have corrected that position. It’s fine margins, but that’s what Formula 1 is all about.”

Sargeant’s radio messages from the end of the race

Sargeant’s race engineer Gaetan Jego did not tell him about his penalty until after the race had finished. The driver was convinced he had not broken a rule.

Chequered flag

Sargeant

Why were we sticking with that tyre?

Jego

We can talk when you get back. I didn’t talk to you because it was not really relevant but we had a 10-second time penalty. So…

Sargeant

For what?

Jego

For, at the Safety Car we overtook Hulkenberg. I don’t have all the details.

Sargeant

No I didn’t.

Jego

Copy, we can review. But I think that’s why we got a 10-second.

Sargeant

I passed the line ahead of him.

Vowles

Logan we’ll go through here together. It was good race for Gasly today and it’s difficult circumstances but lots of learning which is mainly what we need. Let’s come back stronger in Miami together.

Sargeant

Yeah copy. How did Alex do in the end?

Vowles

He was 12th and he had five seconds to the points. Everyone at that Safety Car stayed out to the end.

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