Penalty-hit Logan Sargeant given ‘permission’ to race in Mexico

罗gan Sargeant has been given permission to join his fellow F1 drivers on the Mexican Grand Prix grid despite not setting a time in qualifying, and he also has an irrelevant 10-place grid penalty.

Sargeant had a woeful qualifying at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, out in Q1 when his only lap time of the session was deleted for a track limit violation.

Without a time on the board, Williams had to approach the stewards to request permission for their driver to race, which has been granted.

罗gan Sargeant will line up 20th in Mexico

“The stewards have received a request from Williams Racing to allow Car 2 [Sargeant] to start the race despite failing to set a qualifying time within 107 percent of the fastest time set in Q1,” read the FIA document.

“In accordance with Article 39.4 of the FIA Formula 1 Sporting Regulations, the stewards grant permission for Car 2, Logan Sargeant, to start the race, as the driver has set satisfactory times in practice at this event.”

However, his day went from bad to worse when he was called up to see the stewards having overtaken Yuki Tsunoda under waved yellow flags.

Sargeant reportedly argued that he did so only after seeing a green panel ahead but the rules state a driver cannot overtake until they have passed the green panel.

It was also noted that he did not make a sufficient reduction in speed, consequently, he was handed a 10-place grid drop and two penalty points on his superlicence. That brings his tally in his debut campaign up to six.

“Unfortunately, this afternoon went wrong for us,” he said in the Williams post-qualifying review.

“Going for that last lap everyone wanted to stop in the pit lane for about a minute and lose loads of tyre temp and then there was impeding on the lap and yellow flags. I never really had a fair chance to set a lap.

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“I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. We should’ve got into Q2 with a clean run. In hindsight, we needed to go early and get ahead of all that mess.

“It’s frustrating as we have a quick car this weekend but didn’t put a time on the board. The race pace wasn’t too bad yesterday, so we’ll try and move forward tomorrow.”

But he wasn’t the only one in trouble at Williams, the team copped a €20,000 fine, €10,000 of which is suspended for 12 months subject to no further similar incidents, for leaving a jack in the pit lane that was subsequently hit by Tsunoda.

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