Logan Sargeant’s unusual Bahrain GP steering wheel glitch explained
The issue which caused Logan Sargeant's early off in the F1 Bahrain Grand Prix has been explained.
A steering wheel glitch has been revealed as the cause of Logan Sargeant’s bizarre off during the F1 Bahrain Grand Prix.
Williams driver Sargeant was seen locking up and sliding off into the run-off area all by himself on Lap 10 of Saturday’s season opener in Bahrain.
Sargeant was initially told he would need to retire, but the American managed to get back to the pits, where his car was fitted with a new steering wheel.
He went on to finish a distant 20th after dropping to the back of the field and losing heaps of time due to the issue.
Williams team principal James Vowles said that a glitch with the steering wheel changed Sargeant’s brake bias fully to the front, causing him to go off.
"With Logan, we have an uncommanded brake bias movement all the way to the front, which is why he went off," Vowles was quoted by Motorsport.com.
"The brake bias moved nowhere near where he requested it to be.”
Speaking about his problematic race, Sargeant said: "It was just doing things on its own without my asking. I don't completely understand it from my side.
"We've had some electronic issues the last couple of days, qualifying and then today. So we just need to understand the core issue. We thought we fixed it, but obviously it came back.
"It didn't happen again, once we changed the steering wheel, so maybe it's something there. But we just need to understand the core cause for it, and try to not let it happen again.”
Sargeant’s teammate Alex Albon started 13th but slipped back to 15th after being hampered by power unit temperature problems.
"I know that we have a much faster car than that," Vowles said. "The fortune is only - and I shouldn't be thinking this way - in the fact that our direct rivals didn't score points either. So it became a nullified race through circumstance.
"There were many things that just weren't in the right place. First and foremost, you would have seen that we were suffering with engine temperatures from lap 2.
"That's unusual. You can often have engine temperature issues, but normally manifest themselves a little bit later than that. We need to get on top of understanding that, that was very, very costly.
"So you didn't see what we can perform with. I think the field is very tight. I think we have the potential to be P11. But not to be in the points, to be clear. We have work to do to get there."
