Williams boss James Vowles acknowledged the team’s need to develop ‘better tools’ to prevent penalties like the one suffered by Logan Sargeant in the Chinese Formula 1 Grand Prix from occurring again.
Sargeant had been slowing down the main straight towards Turn 1 as Nico Hulkenberg exited the pit lane during the Safety Car period. The American took advantage of the momentum to stay in front, but replays showed that the Haas car was ahead of the Williams in the Safety Car’s second line of detection.
Sargeant received a ten second increase in his race time and two super license points for illegal overtaking, finishing the race in last place (17th place).
Vowles said Williams was unable to tell Sargeant to give way because he did not have clear images to determine who was in front.
“It was a severe punishment, when you see tenths of a difference turn into seconds, it’s difficult,” Vowles said in a video released by the team. “What’s more, it’s very difficult for the driver to judge whether he was in front or behind. The responsibility is ours and we failed. We need to develop better automated tools to allow us to see what’s happening at that point, because it took multiple camera repeats for us to even see the difference. With the onboard images we have, it was impossible to know who was in front and who was behind.”
He added: “What we have to do is improve our system and processes to make sure we identify this faster, because it can be fixed. Logan would have had to slow down during that initial incident, a few seconds later, let the car pass again, and then correct his position. It’s small margins, but that’s what Formula 1 is all about.”
Vowles highlighted that the team accepted the stewards’ decision, because the regulations state that the punishment cannot be appealed after the race.
“The way penalties work is that when it happens during the race, there is nothing you can do. You can’t appeal,” he said. “Once the penalty is applied, it is over. Their (FIA stewards) judgment was correct. We were behind the line. These are the facts.”
Meanwhile, Sargeant questioned why the FIA did not instruct him to hand the position back to Hulkenberg under the Safety Car to avoid jeopardizing his race.
“There’s a drop-off there too and I think it makes it difficult to see when the cars are a long distance apart,” Sargeant recalled. “From my side, I thought I was way ahead. I didn’t think it was even close, so for me, there was no argument, but finding out about it at the end of the race was a little strange. I don’t know if there is any way for the FIA to give us some feedback. We were under the Safety Car for a long time, I don’t know why they just didn’t tell me to return the position. I would have done it if they had told me to, but from what I know, I thought I was way ahead”, concluded the North American driver.
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Tags: Williams admits failure improve system avoid punishment
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