‘An awesome first day in the office’ for rookie Sargeant as he credits Williams for brilliant first race

Logan Sargeant wound up the most successful of the three rookie drivers in the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix, Williams’ American racer winding up a fine P12 to beat AlphaTauri’s Nyck de Vries (in P14) and retiree Oscar Piastri.

The American had come so close to scraping into Q2 on Saturday, logging the exact same time as Lando Norris but losing out due to setting his lap time later than the McLaren racer. He lined up 16th, but a great getaway saw him rise through the field from word go – and from there, he didn’t put a foot wrong.

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“I think considering it was my first race I’m pretty happy with it,” said Sargeant. “I achieved everything I wanted to today, I got a clean start, a good first lap and from there just settled in and did my best to just maintain good pace, get a few overtakes, worked on my pit stops and everything went smoothly. So it was an awesome first day in the office and I’m really looking forward to Saudi.”

Like his team mate Alex Albon, Sargeant was keen to pay credit to the host of engineers and designers back at Williams HQ who have been hard at work all winter to ensure they start the season with a competitive car, in what is shaping up to be an incredibly tight midfield.