Logan Sargeant has issued an apology to Nyck de Vries over an incident that put them both out of the Australian Grand Prix. The collision occurred at the penultimate race restart on Lap 57, where several cars found themselves caught up in accidents, including Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso as well as the Alpine duo of Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon. Sargeant locked up as the race restarted and made contact with de Vries, resulting in both cars retiring from the event. The Williams driver has explained what happened in the "strange" incident.
Sargeant apologises to de Vries
"It just felt like when I hit the brake nothing was up to temp[erature] – tyres, brakes," Sargeant told media, including RacingNews365.com . "I just touched the brakes and locked both fronts immediately. Apologies to Nyck, I hate to end the day like that, but I have to look and see what happened. "It definitely felt strange because I felt like I had braked in a similar spot [at] the previous two starts."
Incidents at restarts
The Australian Grand Prix featured three red flags and several restarts as a result, but Sargeant admits that he tried to use this as an opportunity to gain further experience. "To be honest, as a rookie, I wasn't hating the chance to have three starts in one race, because I could keep working on that," the American explained. "Obviously, the last one didn't go to plan, that's for sure. I really don't know what happened, I have to look back. It just felt very strange. "It almost just felt like a cold brake situation, where you touch the brakes, the fronts immediately lock and from there there's nothing you can really do." Sargeant's incident with de Vries went unpenalised, while Sainz's collision with Alonso at the same restart led to the Spaniard being handed a five-second time penalty.
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