Williams Formula 1 rookie Logan Sargeant has apologised after hitting AlphaTauri’s Nyck de Vries during the second restart of the Australian Grand Prix.
Amid the chaotic ending of the Australian Grand Prix, the American driver avoided a penalty for the clash.
The incident was blamed on him not being able to get his tyres and brakes up to temperature – an issue that all drivers had been struggling with throughout the weekend to varying degrees.
Sargeant’s crash was one of many incidents that occured during the second standing restart of the race on lap 57 which was rapidly neutralised by race control following a frantic first two corners.
Elsewhere in the field, the Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly collided and in a separate incident, Carlos Sainz tapped Fernando Alonso into a spin, resulting in a five-second penalty for the Ferrari driver.
Sargeant was the last of the remaining runners in P16 before crashing into De Vries who was holding P15 ahead.
The Williams driver locked up into Turn 1 with cool tyres and brakes, ploughing into the rear of the AlphaTauri, leaving the two F1 rookies out of the race and stranded in the gravel trap at Turn 1.
“The last restart was pretty weird,” Sargeant told F1TV. “I felt like I braked like I did on the previous two restarts but it seemed like nothing was up to temperature brakes, tyres.
[I] hit the pedal and it was immediate both fronts locked and there was nothing I could do from there.
“Sorry to Nyck, I didn’t want to end the day like that. It was a tough enough day as it was and it was disappointing to end like that.”
After already falling out of the points when Esteban Ocon collided with him on the exit of Turn 3 earlier in the race, De Vries was unwilling to point the finger at the Williams rookie.
“Everyone can make a mistake and a misjudgement and it’s a racing incident, we’ll move on and hope for a better race next time,” he said.
