Alex Albon describes Williams garage’s atmosphere as “not pleasant” after taking over Logan Sargeant’s car for the rest of Australian F1 GP

Williams driver Alex Albon revealed that the situation within the team became sensitive after the decision to sack Logan Sargeant for the rest of the 2024 F1 Australian GP was made.

The team made this decision since they did not have a spare chassis for the race. Albon's crash in FP1 damaged the car beyond repair and it made it impossible to drive it for the rest of the weekend.

Under normal circumstances, the Thai driver would have taken off from the rest of the weekend, but team principal James Vowles decided that Alex Albon should drive his teammate's car instead, and Logan Sargeant would not drive for the rest of the weekend.

This decision received major criticism regarding the decision. James Vowles stepped up to reveal that it was "one of the toughest decisions" he made with the team so far.

Speaking to Sky F1, Alex Albon praised Logan Sargeant for being an "absolute gentleman" in the situation:

"He’s been an absolute gentleman in the whole situation, and he’s a real team player. So on my side, it was just trying to do the job at hand because, at the end, you can’t really think about it too much."

He further revealed that the atmosphere within the team is "not pleasant" currently and that he doesn't wish for a situation like this to arise again.

"You know, you go and do your job and then that’s the best payback I could give to the team, and to him, was to try and do a good job today and tomorrow. So, obviously the atmosphere and the environment that we’re in is not pleasant. We don’t want it to happen again."

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Alex Albon qualifies P12 in Logan Sargeant's car ahead of 2024 F1 Australian GP

The Thai driver will start the race in Melbourne from P12 after putting in a 1:17.167 as his final lap time. During the Saudi Arabian GP earlier this month, he qualified in the same position and finished the race in P11.

So far, the team has not scored any points within the first two rounds of the season. Williams remains one of the four teams to not have scored any points and this is one of the reasons why the team decided to put Alex Albon in his teammate's car.

James Vowles explained in a video released by the team that the midfield is tightly packed, and even a handful of points can make a major difference. During the 2023 season, Albon scored 27 points against Sargeant's 1 point. At the end of the season, they were seventh in the championship with 28 points, and ahead of RB (then called AlphaTauri) by 3 points.