Logan Sargeant is anticipating that the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend will be an “extremely challenging” event for him.
It marks the first time that the US driver has taken a Formula 1 car around a street track.
However, he has experience at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, having competed at the Formula 2 events in 2021 and 2022.
Sargeant had a positive debut in Bahrain last time out, with Williams taking home a point through Alexander Albon.
Its form in Sakhir was somewhat surprising, given it tipped itself to be the 10th fastest team – and Sargeant believes that its speed in Jeddah will be greater than Bahrain.
“Technically on paper we should be better here than Bahrain,” Sargeant said.
“But that doesn’t mean other people won’t bring other things so we really don’t know and it’s a very different track.
“It’s my first time driving an F1 car on a street track, so that’s obviously extremely challenging.
“I think there’s going to be a lot of variables but hopefully we have a package that can be quick.”
Sargeant drove to a 12th place result in the season-opening race, while he also displayed strong pace in qualifying.
The 22-year-old matched Lando Norris’ lap time in Q1, but as the McLaren driver set his lap first, Sargeant was eliminated in the opening segment.
Despite being the fastest of the rookie drivers in his maiden F1 qualifying session, Sargeant admits he was disappointed with his performance.
“I think to be honest I let myself down a little bit in qualifying,” Sargeant reflected. “I think considering it was my first one I might have had the slightly wrong approach to it.
“But it’s good to experience the bad and good to know which direction I need to move in and the approach I need to take for further qualifying [sessions] as the pace was definitely there.
“We had more speed in the car than what I was able to get out of it last Saturday but race pace I really maximised the race and felt I was very comfortable in a good window
“I just came out of the gates a little bit too strong. I wanted to sort of set the tone early and it was a little… [I] overstepped a bit.
“I didn’t really give myself a great reference for the second lap. I think moving forward I need to make sure my first lap is maybe a little bit more clean within myself to set myself up better for the second.”
Keyword: Sargeant expecting ‘extremely challenging’ weekend at street track debut