Why F1's 'missing piece' won't play on his nationality for success

The desire to crack America has been guiding Formula 1’s direction ever since Liberty Media took over the series in 2017. With three US races planned for this year, booming TV figures and an influx of American sponsors, you would be forgiven for thinking it’s mission accomplished. But, especially in the Drive to Survive era where the personalities of the drivers have become so central to F1’s global image, without an American racer on the grid, there was always going to be room for improvement.

Enter Logan Sargeant, Williams’ new signing for 2023. When the lights go out in Bahrain, he will become the first American to race in F1 since Alexander Rossi’s five-race sojourn with Marussia in 2015, and follow Scott Speed in 
2007 as the latest driver to fly the flag full-time.

The fact his arrival into F1 has come at the same time as the American boom is something Sargeant puts down as a “happy coincidence” and he won’t let that weigh on him. “Hopefully 
I can represent [America] well and make them proud,” he says. “But I don’t think it’s any extra pressure to be honest.”

It’s an opportune time for F1 to get an American on the grid, but don’t go thinking Sargeant’s graduation from Formula 2 
is purely because of his nationality. He’s been a stand-out talent since go-karting, and only narrowly missed out on the Formula 3 title back in 2020 to fellow 2023 F1 rookie Oscar Piastri, widely heralded as the next big thing. It was around this time Sargeant’s career hit a funding roadblock, leaving him to explore options in sportscar racing and then return to F3 with the lowly Charouz team.

But, by the end of 2021, he had joined Williams’ young driver programme and had a plum F2 seat with Carlin in the bag for 2022. Sven Smeets, the sporting director of Williams, had a plan to evaluate Sargeant over two seasons in F2 before then considering his F1 credentials – only for that to change.

“Very quickly,” Smeets tells GP Racing, “we started to see the potential that we maybe didn’t have to do two seasons.”

Williams soon recognised that Sargeant's rate of progression merited a graduation to F1, rather than a second year in F2

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Even so, Sargeant was never the number one choice for the Williams seat. When the writing was on the wall for Nicholas Latifi quite early in 2022, the initial plan was to sign Piastri on loan from Alpine, which deemed Williams to be the best proving ground for the young Australian. This wasn’t a proposition the Piastri camp was all that keen on and, internally at Williams, some figures also had their doubts. As one insider put it: “Why spend two years on Alpine’s F1 junior when we have our own one to look after?”

Sargeant hit his stride in F2 around the same time the Piastri contract saga began to unravel last summer. Back-to-back feature race wins at Silverstone and Spielberg, the former being a dominant display from pole, thrust him into title contention. Behind the scenes, Williams started to advance talks with Sargeant’s management, who left him in the dark so he could focus on his F2 campaign.

“I was kept out of the loop on that,” Sargeant recalls. “I wasn’t aware of that until after Monza. That was when it pretty much became concrete, as long as I got my superlicence.”

"As long as I prepare the best I can physically, mentally, put my time in at the factory in Grove and do everything I possibly can to be the best driver I can be, then I have to live with that. Hopefully, that’s good enough to stay in F1 for a long time" Logan Sargeant

The superlicence conundrum had already caused compatriot Colton Herta to lose his bid for an AlphaTauri seat, and Sargeant’s was far from guaranteed. That didn’t stop now-former Williams boss Jost Capito from announcing in Austin that Sargeant would get the drive so long as he met the 40-point threshold, later saying it would have been “unfair” to keep other hopefuls like Mick Schumacher and Antonio Giovinazzi hanging on. Capito acknowledged the timing of the announcement in
 Austin was no coincidence, showing a desire to maximise 
the American angle in a move that undoubtedly pleased 
the US-based owner of Williams, Dorilton Capital.

Having lost a decent haul of points due to a mix of reliability woes and, at Zandvoort, letting emotions get the better of him after a bad start, Sargeant entered the F2 season finale at risk of falling short of the superlicence threshold. But he felt “at peace” with the scenario and was therefore able to shrug the pressure off, itself an encouraging demonstration of his mindset.

“I knew if we executed the way we could and had the same pace we’ve had all year, that everything would be fine,” he says. The same could not be said of Smeets, who admits he was “very nervous for [Sargeant] at the start of the weekend,” only for his fears to be allayed once Sargeant had cleanly got through qualifying and the Saturday sprint, before clinching fourth in the championship on Sunday – and with it, the required superlicence points.

With just three days of pre-season testing, there is a small window for Sargeant to get up to speed. Williams tried to ease the learning curve with four FP1 runs at the end of last year, the Abu Dhabi test and a deal with Alpine for Sargeant to test an old car in the winter. It has all helped get him ready for the physical reality, an area in which Smeets “could really see there was a huge improvement”.

Sargeant completed several practice sessions for Williams last year to help him get up to speed

Photo by: Williams F1

Williams’ philosophy with Sargeant won’t change upon his F1 graduation. Smeets would like to see a repeat of the “very quick steps” his charge made through F2, but is also conscious that any rookie must go through some “tough moments” when they debut. So what is the target?

“Progression,” says Smeets. “Take this season to learn, and then be full on for ’24.”

By then, F1 will hope Sargeant has cemented himself on the grid and given the fans in Miami, Austin and Las Vegas a home favourite to root for. But being ‘the American driver’ isn’t an identity Sargeant is looking to play on. He’s been based out of London for the past six years – there’ll be no repeat of Michael Andretti’s doomed commuting plan in 1993 – and isn’t dwelling on any extra scrutiny he may face.

“As long as I prepare the best I can physically, mentally, put my time in at the factory in Grove and do everything I possibly can to be the best driver I can be, then I have to live with that,” he says. “Hopefully, that’s good enough to stay in F1 for a long time.”

Sargeant could be a pivotal figure in F1’s American dream. But, to achieve that, he needs to be a success; simply making up the numbers won’t excite US interest. Doing more than that with Williams will be a tough ask, particularly in year one, though this is clearly a multi-year commitment.

In the words of famed US army General George S. Patton: “Americans love a winner, and will not tolerate a loser.” If Sargeant can hoist the star-spangled banner atop the podium one day, an entire nation will salute him…

Sargeant hopes to be on the F1 grid for many years to come without relying on the world championship's need for a US driver

Photo by: Williams