The American had a solid run in SQ1, making it into the second qualifying session, finishing the first session 11th, but hit a wall late at Turn 15, allowing him to start 15th Sprint race.
The impact with the barrier on the downhill exit damaged his car and his right rear corner was ripped off, but Sargeant was not injured.
Despite hours of attempted repairs between the end of qualifying and the start of the sprint, Williams was running out of time to fix it.
The FIA announced two hours before the start of the sprint that Williams had asked Sargent’s car to withdraw from the sprint – a request accepted by the governing body.
Sargent’s absence means that the grid will be closed, so drivers behind him will all move up one place.
The disappointment of missing the sprint came on a weekend when Sargent entered Q2 for the first time this season and appeared to have made some progress in his qualifying form.
Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri AT04, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL60, Logan Sargeant, Williams FW45 lose in sprint shootout
Williams said it did what it could to fix Sargent’s car ahead of the sprint, but unfortunately there wasn’t enough time to do the job.
The team posted on social media: “Despite the team’s best efforts, Logan’s car was unable to compete in #F1Sprint this afternoon.
“After receiving the FW45 after the shootout, we went all out to fix the car, but didn’t have enough time to complete the repairs. We then pulled Logan from Sprint.
“Frustrated for Logan who did a great job in Q2 this weekend.”
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He will start 15th on Sunday’s Grand Prix, just two behind teammate Alex Albon.
Williams should be able to complete the repairs in time for Sunday’s main grand prix at 3pm local time.
While Fernando Alonso is not yet in contention for a win in 2023, the Spaniard’s performance in a relatively strong Aston Martin looks like a comeback. Even with a slightly better car, the nearly 42-year-old F1 driver could take on Max Verstappen, a fight everyone including Pedro de la Rosa would love to see.
The race in Barcelona is significant because Pirelli raced on its 2024 tires just once before the FIA made a final decision on whether to go ahead with the original race plan – after the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, where Red Bull took part. There is no blanket for the game next season.
Current rules say the blankets will remain in place until 2024, and a decision on whether to change and abandon them must be made by July 31.
Several drivers who tested early prototypes of the blanketless tires in winter were not happy with them, with Lewis Hamilton calling them “dangerous”.
However, testing after the Bahrain Grand Prix showed more promise and Pirelli believes next week’s race in Spain will represent a further step.
An early design of the future structure will be used for this year’s British Grand Prix and was tested by drivers in Barcelona on Friday.
The FIA has approved the carpetless all-wet tyres, which were first used by Sergio Perez and the Haas drivers during the Monaco Grand Prix.
“It’s very important for us,” Pirelli’s chief engineer Simone Berra told Autosport of the Barcelona race.
“We’re testing most of the compounds, we have a lot of variants. We’re trying to test different structures to move forward because the goal is to have no blankets in 2024.
“So we need a structure that obviously needs to have good integrity, a high level of integrity, but needs to work really well at the start of the run when the pressure is lower and help the compound get to temperature and become in the operating range .
“So we’re continuing to develop new structures. Then we’ll start looking at new families of compounds that don’t use blankets. So I think that’s going to be a good test for us.
“The Barcelona we know is representative because we have high-speed sections. It’s a normal track, a more complete track compared to Bahrain when we tested at the beginning of the season.”
While not entirely representative, Bella believes the Bahrain test has helped point Pirelli in the right direction, with the tires due to run in Spain next week meeting the requirements.
Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-23, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23
“I think we’ve gotten some interesting stuff,” he said. “Obviously Bahrain is not really important for all circuits because you have a high temperature on the track and you have high traction demands and braking demands.
“So we need to test the new structure on different tracks where you have high lateral loads, higher severity and maybe cooler temperatures compared to Bahrain, just to see where we’re going in a good direction effort.
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“When we were testing in Bahrain, we had some good options out of the box. But there were still some things that needed to be fine-tuned, finalized, and this was a new proposal.
“So that’s what the test is for. We’re trying to develop a structure that helps generate the temperature on the tyre, so that the compound can work. That means the structure is less stiff and can increase stiffness as pressure increases .”
Bella believes Pirelli will finally get the FIA’s approval to ditch blankets in 2024.
The test will also see the Mercedes track debut of the team’s reserve driver Mick Schumacher, who will tackle the W14 on Wednesday after George Russell entered the race the previous day.
While Fernando Alonso is not yet in contention for a win in 2023, the Spaniard’s performance in a relatively strong Aston Martin looks like a comeback. With a slightly better car, the nearly 42-year-old F1 driver could challenge Max Verstappen. A fight that everyone, including Pedro de la Rosa, wanted to see.