Marcus Ericsson under fire for spreading ‘completely untrue’ Williams rumour

Logan Sargeant has rubbished Marcus Ericsson’s claims he and James Vowles no longer speak

Logan Sargeant has rubbished Marcus Ericsson’s claim that the F1 driver and his Williams team boss James Vowles barely greet each other anymore, saying that’s simply “not true”.

Yet to get off the mark this season, Sargeant has been the topic of many a rumour but they all point to his days in Formula 1 being numbered.

Logan Sargeant denies he and James Vowles aren’t speaking

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

With Sargeant yet to get off the mark this season, Vowles told the media at Silverstone that Williams are “continually evaluating” their driver options with Sargeant out of contract at the end of the season.

“What we’ve said to Logan is it’s a meritocracy,” he explained. “You have to make sure you earn your place in the sport continuously. That’s been the same message that has been for 18 months really for him. And we are open-minded to things.”

But while the rumours that this season could be his last in the sport could yet be true, a claim by former F1 driver Ericsson that Sargeant and Vowles are no longer speaking is not.

Speaking on the Viaplay podcast, the Swede said: “I was told by some American friends who know Sargeant [that] he doesn’t have fun in that team. He thinks it’s really hard and apparently he and Vowles don’t even talk with each other anymore, they barely greet each other. It’s completely cut off between them.”

PlanetF1.com asked Sargeant about Ericsson’s comment, the 23-year-old insisting it was “completely untrue”.

“Marcus Ericson has a reputation of talking about other people without ever having been in a conversation with me in his life,” he said. “It doesn’t carry any weight, it’s not true.

“I just had a conversation with James here about 20 minutes ago.

“Most importantly, me and James we both come here, we want to do what is best for the team, we both work in the same direction for what is the best for the team. And ultimately what’s best for the team is best for me.

“It’s completely untrue.”

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“I guess it is just how it goes, it hasn’t been a particularly easy season with the amount of things that have happened,” he added when asked if it was uncomfortable reading that sort of thing.

“From a team perspective, we have struggled in some areas, so of course it can look like our relationship has worsened from the outside but we just go to work as usual and keep trying to perform as best we can.”

As for whether he’ll have a chat with Ericsson about his allegation, the F1 driver has no interest. “Like I said, I’ve never spoken with him in life. I don’t plan on it either,” he said.

Sargeant could yet find himself racing against Ericsson next season as he has been linked to IndyCar with Prema, who are putting plans in place for a two-car IndyCar assault.

Rene Rosin, the team principal of Prema, revealed: “We are talking, but from the driver side we are not really interested in discussing now much, because I have been concentrating on building up the team in the style that we all want and drivers will be on the second stage.”

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