Welcome.

To Nailing the Apex, I'm Tim Horeney. We've got an emergency pod here and some breaking news as Williams racing has announced that Logan Sargent will drive for the team in 2024. Joining me to break it all down is Mr. Mike O'Bowman. Dude, what's going on? It's been a while. How are you?

Yeah, I thought you didn't like me anymore, but I'm glad to be back for this emergency podcast.

No, I don't like you. Let me tell you what? When we need to talk about America and when you need to talk about American drivers, you're the first guy on my list. Let me tell you. Because you know what, man? You actually spent some time with him. You've spoken to him quite a bit. You've written a great article on him as well. So you know the subject inside and out. And same for myself, know Logan quite well, so you're the best guy to sit down and carve this one up with. I think some people may like the signing, Michael. Some people may not like the signing. Some may feel that Williams should have gone in a different direction altogether. I have my thoughts on that that I'll say for a little bit later. But for yourself, what do you think? Do you feel like this was a good move by Williams to bring him back for one more season?

Well, as you mentioned, I am, I guess, the ranking jingoistic American that you have on the show from time to time. So obviously, I'm thrilled to see the only American driver of the past or the only full-time American driver of the past 15 years back on the grid for another year. Williams clearly likes him a lot. And yet I'm ambivalent because every time I've been on the show, we've talked about Logan, and you, I think, know him way better than I do. I remember your interview with him, you're the only person I've ever seen get personality out of it, which is no small thing. So obviously, I think it'd speak for both of us and I'd say we are a Logan-Sergent-positive group here, but I kept waiting for that breakthrough. Obviously, he's got the speed he's shown flashes both in practice and in qualifying and in dating back to F2 and F3, and he never really put it together on a full race weekend. And I think it's fair to pull that against him. I think it's fair to judge him pretty harshly. He had more than 20 chances to get himself back up to speed.

I don't think anybody expected him to be beating Alex Albon right away or even by the end of the season. There were times when he got close, but it's not just the results, the one-points-finish that needed numerous penalties, it's the crashes. I think that there's a very real parallel to be drawn to Mike Schumacher here because the only way you can judge a driver is in comparison to their teammate. Schumacher's teammate, his rookie year. Schumacher didn't score a point for over his two-year career in F1 had similar crash problems that pose a financial and development problem for a smaller team, which I think if you were going to can Logan, that's what I would do for you. Bring the car home safely. I think that's job number one. But Schumacher's comparison was to Nikita Mazepin, who is one of the worst full-time F1 drivers of maybe the 21st century. I don't know how far you want to go back. But Sergeant was up against Alex Albon, who I think who's very highly regarded within the paddock, viewed as a genuine team leader and somebody who could eventually become a race winner. And he's the ideal elder statesman now for that Williams team.

And he just handed Logan his dinner. And so I don't know. I think what this says to me, as I get into what I think is like minute three of this rant, is In when you talk about getting rid of somebody, whether it's an athlete or making a change in any sport, athlete or coach or executive, the question they should immediately follow that is, who do you replace them with? And I don't have a good answer for that. I think if there was another driver really not walking down the door, who Williams could have access to, then they might have made the change, even though they really want to put Logan in a position to succeed. And I think that's what it's come down to. I don't know who you go get.

Yeah. I mean, it's such a tough one, too, because it's not like there's a sexy type of replacement that's out there. There just isn't. And that's not taking a shot at the likes of Filipe Jogovic, who obviously is a Formula 2 champion, took him a few years to get there. And then Mike Schumacher, obviously still available, obviously, because of the Mercedes program he's involved with. And then obviously the synergies between Mercedes and Williams and both sharing the same engine and rear end. But then you look past all that. And there really isn't much at all of anything that you can really hang your hat on and say, this is the guy who's going to come in. He's going to be a stable driver. He's going to give us results. And we can trust that this driver is going to be worth our time and money to invest into. I don't think it's to go out and get a younger driver like a McSchumacher who had his chance and a Filipe drugovic who is still getting his feet wet within F1 now with Ashton Martin as a reserve driver. He's going to be the reserve driver for next season as well.

I just don't think they have that experience. I think with this level of F1 car, now you need those drivers who have that experience. That's why Haas went out and gets, Nico Huckerman brings him back. They're not going to throw Petro Fittapaldi in there and be like, you're now our number two driver buying Kevin Magnesson. This is not going to happen, right? It just doesn't have that experience with driving different types of Formula One cars. And I think for I think for rookie and I've said it before on this podcast, it's the fact that it takes a while in Formula One, especially nowadays, to really see what you've got. I mean, even I would say year two, Balman, that's not even going to be enough. I would say once you get to year three, then you have an understanding of what you've got, then you know how far you can push the driver, you know how far they're going to develop, and just how good they are going to be. I think for Logan, and you and I have discussed this before, coming into Formula 1 just underdone. He's just not fully cooked and ready to go.

He hasn't spent a second year in Formula Two, which I feel he probably should have more from the standpoint that Yos Capito rushed this driver through to make a big splash at the US GP back in 2000. 2022, to make sure that they are going to have American for 2023, but not taking into consideration, Hey, what else does Logan need to learn to jump in and be successful straight out of the gate? Look at Oscar Piazzri, great driver, incredible talent, generational almost in terms of talent, you may say. But he also had a year outside of Formula 2 of seasoned, spending, working with not like 2-3 engineers with these guys work with in Formula 2, working with hundreds of engineers. And that changes the whole dynamic of everything this driver has to do and not having that experience. I think for Logan, that had to be like super eye-opening, man. That's got to be more pressure added to the shoulders coming in to just start your first season of Formula 1. And so he didn't get off to a bad start, I would say, and it wasn't horrible. But by the time we got to the Canadian Grand Prix, and that's when Alex Albonne really came to life, I would say from then on, it was a massive struggle for Logan to close that performance gap between himself and between Alex because it was huge.

I don't think they actually really... He actually really didn't close that up until a lot later in the season. But I think at the same time, you're going up against Alex Albo and it looked like he hit another level in his driving, and that's the best I've ever seen him. And then we got to the British Grand Prix. I thought, Okay, well, he looks pretty good here. He finished P-11. I can't remember what your tweet was, but it was a good stat. It was like the first driver to finish that high up in the championship, and it.

Was like quite some time. Since Scott Speed. Yeah, because Alex Russell's best finish was 12th. That's just mostly just a comment about the state of America. Because the 10th place finish in Austin was technically the first point scored by an American since Michael Andretti.

It was like 30 years or something.

Yeah.

It was a long time. I would say once we got out of the British Grand Prix, I had these hopes that, okay, he looks like he's figured it out. Looks like he's got it. I mean, he knew the track quite well, so I was expecting him to perform quite well. And then the final two races before the summer break, was a DNF and Hungary, and I think it was a P-17 and SPA. Those were tracks where, like SPA in particular, tracks where I think the team was feeling they could score some good points and really get themselves solidified in that either P7 or push for P-6 in the constructors and get that money that they really need. So I think coming out of the summer break, I think for a sergeant, there's a lot of pressure on his shoulders. And in particular, going to these next few European rounds, Zandvort and then the Italian Grand Prix. The Italian Grand Prix stands out to me because that, again, it was to be another Williams-favoured track and so a place where they could score some points and maybe Logan could score his first points as well. But P13 and Monza.

So it didn't really go that well. And then from then on out, I was honestly, man, I wasn't sure if he was going to be back because he was going to hit tracks, Michael, that he's never been to, right? I think after that, it was Japan, then it was it? Japan, Singapore, Qatar. And obviously, Qatar didn't go well at all. I mean, dehydrated, had the flu coming in, had to pull out of that. So I think from there, I was like, I'm not sure if this guy sticks around. But then at the same time, I was like, Who are they going to replace him with? I think that's.

Why they ran this decision down past the end of the season. They were in a position where they could let the driver market come to them. And nobody worth chasing really got forced out of a seat. There was no post-racing point, Sergio Perez or Valcery Botos after Mercedes. There's nobody like that falling down the ladder, particularly after Daniel Riccardo got the full-time Alfa Tari seat. And I guess the much mooded, lone move for Liam Lawson never came together because Lawson was, he was everything that we could have possibly hoped Logan Sargent could have been as a rookie. And for whatever reason, that didn't work. And there was just nobody within the system and nobody they had access to. I think if drugivitch or Schumacher or Teo Porte share was in the Williams system right now, they would have made that change. And this is the story of Logan's career for the past couple of years. He was on the verge of being bounced out of the European ladder just because the funding ran out and then Williams picked him up. And ever since then, he's just been at the right place at the right time.

When I wrote that story about the next American F1 driver a couple of years ago, or I guess, is that a couple of years ago? I don't know.

Yeah, a couple of years ago.

Yeah. No, it was last year. I don't know what year it is. I came away from that fully expecting the next American F1 driver to be Colton Herde. I thought he showed stuff that Sergeant certainly had not... Sergeant took a big leap after I talked to him. But at Herde, it was so impressive in the interview. I was like, This is a guy. I don't know where the ceiling is for this guy. I never really got that perception about Sergeant. I've said this a million times. I think Williams would have kept him in Formula Two another year if the driver situation had allowed them to. And you're seeing inexperience. I also think he got unlucky a lot. This is not a car that's competitive at every track. As much as he crashed it, it broke down on him a lot. You mentioned him getting sick at Qatar, stuff like that. Just nothing could really go right. And you could just see this very inexperienced driver. You could almost see his head dropping a little bit. And I think that if there's a cause for optimism that he can put this behind him and really come into 2024 with a fresh mindset because he really does.

I've said this three or four times on the show throughout the season. It's like we need to see that breakthrough coming, and we never really did. That just remains true. Nothing really changes now that he's in the car again.

Also, one of the things I should point out, the cars, obviously, they weren't the same either. The car that at times Alex Albon had and the car that Logan had in certain races, they weren't the exact same car where Alex was getting obviously the preferential treatment for the upgrades we've seen now for this season and last season, just how important these upgrades are for these cars. They add a ton of performance. But at the end of the day, Logan wasn't getting those upgrades until either the next race or the race after that. B, simply because the team either A, couldn't manufacture the parts fast enough, or B, didn't really have the finances to just dump into pumping parts out 24/7 like some other teams can. And I also think C, they don't have the infrastructure to do it in general. They don't have the infrastructure to turn parts out quick enough to get them to these race cars. And for Williams, that's going to be another thing moving forward. And that could really frustrate Logan, I think, at the end of the day. Let's say that next season, he's able to really nail those consistent performances.

Just have a good weekend where you're consistently strong starting from FP 1 all the way through to race finish. It's like you had said, that's what he needs. He needs to do that. He needs to show us that because he hasn't. But that's what he needs to do for next season for sure. But think about how frustrated this driver is going to get if he's putting those performances in, but the team is not delivering the upgrades fast enough.

That's a good point. I saw Gary Anderson from the race make this point. I thought I disagreed with his overall take on Sergeant, but I think this point in particular is really important, which is that he led F1 in crash damage. It was something... I saw a figure of $4 million. But every time they had to rebuild his car, that's money and factory time and resources that they couldn't put into upgrading it. And it hurts the entire team when he does it. James Valis was a lot nicer to Logan about this than Guntur Steiner was to mix Schumacher a year ago. But for a small team, you can't put up with that many setbacks, enforced errors. And so as much as the car let him down from time to time, I think Williams tolerance for crash damage from Logan, and not even in race situations a lot of the time. I think you're running wheel to wheel and someone punches a hole in your side pod or you lose your front wing, fine, nobody cares about it. That's just part of the game. But dropping it in practice, putting it in the wall, losing it and qualifying, that stuff really adds up.

And I think James Val's tolerance for that is a lot higher than mine would be in that situation.

And that's another interesting part of it because from folks who I'd spoken to at the team, it really did sound like James had Logan's back. He really believed in him. And it's an interesting story between those two because if you go back to the days when Logan was in Formula Three. He did a test with Mercedes at their simulator, at their factory. And at the time, that was part of James Vales' job at Mercedes was to look into younger talent and let's see where younger talent is going to come from. And Logan went through there and James said no to him. They basically said, This isn't going to be our guy. We got a pass on him. And now the two of them are working together. But the interesting part of it is that James, I think, could have simply just threw him under the bus, got rid of him, and replaced him as soon as he came to the team as team principal starting in this new year. But he did it. And I think the interesting part of it is James actually put the old arm around the shoulder and said, Every time for every tough race, it's going to be okay.

You got to keep working hard. We're going to support you, and I've got your back. I think on Logan's side, I think that kept him from crumbling. Yes. I really do, man. I think if you don't have a team principal like a James Valls doing something like that, I think it's game over for Logan. As a young driver, rookie driver in Formula One, tough sport, tough series to be in, yeah, I think that's it. Yeah.

I never got the perception that he didn't think that this was a bad thing or he knew that he wasn't screwing up. But James Valls did really do, like you said, a really good job of man management with him, just holding it together because he's in a tough situation. I think deep down he might even have admitted this that this is a lot to come really quickly and maybe he's not 100% ready and just keeping... You know this way better than I do, but driving is all about confidence. And when you don't believe in yourself.

It's just- Just came over, buddy.

Yeah, it falls apart in a hurry. Just the fact that we did see those incremental gains, there are elements... I guess you're just looking for this at this point, but were you hanging your head? Oh, there's one really good practice session or first lap of Q1, like he's finally beating Albon. You saw those little green shoots coming through late in the season, and I don't know if it's going to amount to anything next year, but James Val seems to have invested a lot in this driver personally. Frankly, I don't think he has anything to lose by doing that. They know where they are right now. They have to be patient with the direction of the team, building up infrastructure, building up development capacity, making changes to the executive and engineering level. There's so much wrong with Williams right now that has nothing to do with the drivers. And so if you can just get this guy to hold down the fort, having an American is good for sponsorship purposes. Maybe that gets him a little extra rope. And Albon is scoring plenty of points anyway. And so at worst, this is something you can live with.

I think that's the case. And that's why James Valls was, like I said, probably more patient with him than I would have been in that situation.

The other part of this that I find really fascinating is obviously, I have to mention Logan's quality performance in Vegas. I was there for that, reported on it. I've reported on Logan for Canadian television down at that race. It was great. It was fun because as a driver, like yourself, I've watched come through the ranks, I've known for a long time. It was really like a breakout performance on a track that no one has ever been to. Conditions as well weren't favorable to the tires. For a younger driver, a rookie driver, that's one of the hardest things. You saw Oscar Piazzri struggle with it in Vegas as well, is that tire warm up and then also the execution when the tire is ready to go. For Sergeant, he was frigging awesome, that whole qualifying, Q1, Q2, Q3, navigating his way through all that. It was in a very impressive performance. I think that's what sealed the deal, man. I really do. The fact that he closed that gap in performance to Alex over the race pace, like he finally was on the same page as Alex was for race pace, it's just that some races, and we're talking the back half of the season, some of those races, it was more along the lines of not managing the tire enough as the stint wore down.

That was, I think, one of the one of the things he needed to learn a little bit more. That's a really hard thing to learn. Usually, one of the last things to learn for a driver. But I think in Logan's case, he did a really good job of closing all that gap. I think for James Val, that's what he saw. He saw that this is a kid. He put the work in. He got the here. He nailed the objectives that we did ask him to do, and he's closed the gap to Alex in a car that's really difficult to drive. The other part of this conversation, Michael, that I find interesting is that the Williams driver development program, the Williams racing driver academy, they've had one, but it's never been, I would say, what it is now with being under Doralton. And I think the money that Doralton invests in the program at the same time, and Sven Smitu runs that program, I think that this is a program. They've had drivers like Nicholas Le TV, Lance Stroel, they came through, got into F1, but never really true, true driver academy. Now they actually have something like Red Bull has where it's actually turning out talent.

I think this is something that they really need to make sure it doesn't fail. I think you're going to not bring Logan back, who technically is that first driver from the driver academy, has punched his way through.

I think that's a big part of it. If you can this guy, and he's barely a Williams Academy graduate. He was only there for a year. But still, he's the de facto face of this. And we're seeing some Mercedes has obviously brought a bunch of people through Red Bull. Alpine, I think, has been very successful, I think, has one of the deeper benches right now. If this was happening with Alpene's Academy lineup, I think we might be seeing a change too. But if you just bring one guy in for one year and then you pun to him. That doesn't show a lot of faith in this academy that you're trying to big up. And you're competing against Red Bull and Alpine and Mercedes and even Alfa Romeo, Saubert. These are teams that are Ferrari, bringing young drivers through. If you're a young driver, you're looking for where you think is going to give you the best chance to break into Formula 1. I'd go to Alpine or Red Bull or.

If.

Williams wants to attract this next generation of young drivers, they have to show that they have faith in the drivers that they produce. So I think that that's an added benefit to bringing him back, is giving him every opportunity to be a success story for that academy, even though he's not... He's mostly a branding exercise from that perspective.

I think a couple of other drivers that are part of that academy is W Series champion and current Indy Next driver, Jamie Chadwick. F Three stars like Luke Browning, he just did a test actually in an Aston Martin because of, I believe it was a British racing driver's club that got him that. Franco Calopinto also did a test for Williams at the Young Driver's test on Tuesday this week. Same goes as Zach O'Sullivan. And then they have Oliver gray, and then they have a few others as well. But I think they are really taking a strong look at a driver like and Zach O'Sullivan to see where they end up turning out because I think for Williams, when they look at it, those are two drivers, and obviously, Jamie Chadwick as well, have true potential as great racing drivers in Formula 1. I would simply just say that if this were to fail with Logan, then I think that's what does in the driver academy as well. I think Doralton doesn't give it the support that it actually really, really needs if Logan doesn't manage to close up the performance gaps and get the next deal signed.

That's just what I would say.

I don't think tying it all to one driver would be a smart decision. I think maybe you give somebody like Sullivan a chance to take that seat from them. If it just continues to churn out 17th place drivers, then maybe you revisit things. But I don't think that pinning your hopes on one driver, particularly a driver who came through in less than ideal conditions, would be a smart move. But then again, when is the last time an American hedge fund made a short sighted decision that sabotaged the organization in the long run?

It's happened. Yeah. All in all, I'm happy for Logan. I'm excited that he got a second year out of this. I'm excited to see what he can do next season. I really do think that if he can string together consecutive performances, Bowman, I think there's a really good driver in there. I think that if he's able to do that and take that into next season, I think that's a good driver pairing as well. I think that driver pairing between Alex and Logan would be a good one. At the same time, Williams has got to develop a car that has a good drivable factor. That's one of the other things I've been noticing with these F1 cars is that as soon as they drop out of the drivability factor, so when a team really chases performance, the driveability of it where the driver feels confident, can feel the car, knows what it's going to do, can be predictable, they're usually pretty handy and pretty quick. But then once the team chases the performance and it loses that driveability factor, which some teams have done that this season, the driver loses the confidence. I think if they can get that under control, it'll help.

This is why you hear people saying about what makes maxxford, Sappen, and Land O'Nore so special is those are two guys who have a very wide range of what they're willing to put up with in terms of a car that's low on driveability but high on potential speed. I don't expect Logan Sargent to be able to do that, but there might only be four or five guys in the entire grid who can do it to that extent.

Yeah, there's not many. There's not many in.

The world. You can make his job easier, I think, than they've made it. But all that said, I like a lot of the components that Williams have put in place. I think this team was completely at C, maybe as recently as last year. And I think that you really do see them going in a positive direction. And if Logan can not even equal Alex, but just be a solid sidekick to him, I think that that really improves the team's outlook.

Bellman, thank you very much for taking the time to do this. I really appreciate it. Wheelie Sports.

Yeah.

Can you tell me a bit more about that? Okay, so I'll let you tell me about it, and then I'll follow up.

Yeah. I'll encourage everybody to check out my work at fangraphs. Com. We've got the winter meetings coming up, so I'll be there in Nashville to cover, hopefully, the show Hey, O'Tanya signing. But in.

My- Coming to Toronto, by the way. Coming to Toronto.

Oh, man. So all the people I follow... Yesterday on Twitter just saw a blanket, Ohtani to Toronto. We've parceled out some of the big signings, and I've got Ohtani. So whenever he signs, wherever he signs with, I've got to write about it. I was like, Where the hell is this coming from? I tracked down what I thought was the original reporter who made the report. It's somebody I've never heard of before. But Chris Johnson is tweeting about it. I'm like, How is every hockey person I follow. He's convinced that this is going to happen? And none of the baseball people are... I think it would be sick if Ohtani went to Toronto. I think that's a very fun destination, a plausible one. But you guys have got to calm down a little bit. Anyway, so wheelie sports. This is something I've started up. It's a cycling newsletter on Substack. It's going to run twice a week. I'm covering cycling basically from the perspective of trying to get North American fans into this weird alien punishing sport. I think that it has the potential, maybe not to have that growth that F1 did, but I think everybody's, or a lot of fans are looking for that next big thing.

And I think that cycling is fun and unusual and more accessible than you might think. So I've got a post up today, the first proper post about how Matthew Vanderpool- I was.

Just going to ask.

You about this. He's one of the best writers in the world, how he's really a salesman for a German shampoo company and how the team structure works and how teams are different in the sport versus baseball, football, hockey, sports like that. So the newsletter is free until the end of the year, and it's going to go paid in January. So please subscribe on Substack. And if you like what you see, I would very much appreciate you signing up to read it next year.

I really enjoyed today's article when it showed up in my inbox. It was very well written. I'm a huge cycling fan. So I follow the Sportcoy Coat.

We talked about Allison Jackson winning Perry Rubay.

Action Jackson, baby. As soon as I saw the headline for today's article, dude, I just thought I couldn't keep it together, bro. I just started to-.

We're going to have fun. This is my promise. We're going to have fun doing this.

No, it's really good, man. I like it. I appreciate the fact that actually you're a great writer, but you're taking the time to actually invest in a sport that is really great and that could use it honestly.

Yeah. This is maybe a little too behind the scenes, but just before F1 ticked over, I was working at The Ringer, and I put my toe in the water and pitch some stuff about Lewis Hamilton. This was six months before people got interested, and I didn't push and didn't really silo that off. That's one of my big professional regrets. So this is me trying not to make that same mistake with another sport. So I hope people will get on board.

Yeah, it's great. It's good stuff. I really appreciate it. Appreciate your time, too, as well, Michael. If you want more Nailing the Apex, you can get Nailing the Apex wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch past episodes on YouTube as well. You can get more from me at Tim Horena and all forms of social media. Today, I was supposed to release the Alfa Romeo Salber F1 Alessandro Alunzi Bravi interview, but I'm going to do that next week because of this news trumped it. I didn't want Alessandro to get buried because it was a great interview. We talked a lot about driver contracts, how they work, because he used to do that before being a team representative for the Salber F1 team. Other than that, we'll talk to you all next week. We'll see you later.