Logan Sargeant will become the first American driver to begin a season of the Formula 1 world championship since 2007 when he makes his debut for Williams in 2023.
Born in Boca Raton, Florida, Sargeant enjoyed success in karting, winning the World Junior Karting Championship title in in 2015 ahead of Clement Novalak. He made his car racing debut in Formula 4 United Arab Emirates, finishing second in the championship and in the majority of races, invariably to runaway champion Jonathan Aberdein.He continued his racing in Europe and picked up a pair of wins in the British F4 championship in 2017, on his way to third in the championship behind Jamie Caroline and Oscar Piastri. He also made a handful of starts in Formula Renault 2.0 machinery, which was his focus the following year. He contested the Eurocup and Northern European Cup, finishing fourth and fifth respectively in the two series with five wins across both for R-ace GP.
Sargeant graduated to the first of what turned out to be three years in Formula 3 the following season. A promising fifth on the grid for the season opener at Circuit de Catalunya proved a false dawn, and the rest of the season was one of steady improvement with a struggling Carlin team and four points scores from 16 races left him 19th in the championship. He shone in the season-closing Macau Grand Prix however, finishing third behind Richard Verschoor and Juri Vips.
For 2020 Sargeant moved to the crack Prema squad alongside two drivers who were graduating into the series with titles under their belts: Eurocup champion Piastri and Frederik Vesti, winner of the new Formula Regional European Championship. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic badly disrupted F3, which as a result ran a nine-event season over just 11 weeks.
Piastri beat Sargeant to victory in the first race of the campaign, setting up a season-long battle between the pair. After Sargeant failed to score in the second race of the opening round, he picked up points in all bar one of the next 12 races, consistency which was key to his title bid.
Sargeant tended to qualifying strongly but slip back in the feature races. From third on the grid in the series’ second weekend at the Red Bull Ring he fell to sixth at the flag. He repeated that result at the Hungaroring when a post-race penalty dropped him from third to sixth. His first pole position came at Silverstone but Sargeant finished third again, and this time kept that place.
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On the series’ second visit to Silverstone Sargeant made a breakthrough, taking pole again and romping to an emphatic feature race win. That put him in the lead of the championship, Piastri having a weekend compromised by car trouble. Sargeant made it three pole positions in a row at Circuit de Catalunya, but finished third in the feature race after Jake Hughes and Liam Lawson pounced on him after a Safety Car restart.
Sargeant and Piastri swapped the championship lead after both races at Spa-Francorchamps, where Sargeant was confined to eighth with engine trouble in the feature race but took his second win in the sprint. Monza was a disaster, however: Novalak hit him in the feature, compromising his starting position for the sprint, in which Sargeant tangled with team mate Vesti and earned a grid penalty for the Mugello finale.
Piastri was only 16th on the grid for the opening Monza race due to a penalty of his own, so sixth place in the race for Sargeant put them level on points going into the final race. But Sargeant’s shot at be champion did not last much longer. He tangled with Lirim Zendeli at turn two of the title decider and crashed out. While Piastri took the title, Theo Pourchaire relegated Sargeant to third in the final standings.
It was a low point for Sargeant, whose hopes of progressing to Formula 2 were hit by financial trouble. “At the end of 2020 it looked very, very down,” he explained to RaceFans in 2022. “We didn’t really have many options.”
He eventually chose to return to F3, sealing a late deal with a team whose top driver finished 10th in 2020, and hadn’t scored a point with either of its other cars. “The budget wasn’t there to go to F2, and Charouz came with a really good offer to race in F3 again,” Sargeant revealed.
Sargeant faced an uphill struggle at the unfamiliar Charouz squad and was the only driver to complete the full season for the team as five drivers shared the other two seats.
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He began his season with a fourth place in Barcelona, then took a podium at Paul Ricard. But he failed to capitalise on pole position on a partially-reversed grid at the Red Bull Ring, finishing 15th after a track limits penalty. However eighth place in the feature race began a points run which lasted until the end of the year – a feat no one else managed.
That run included a podium finish at the Hungaroring after on-track winner Lorenzo Colombo was penalised five seconds for dropping more than 10 car lengths behind the Safety Car. More podiums followed at Spa and Zandvoort, then in Sochi he grabbed a win from second on a partially-reversed grid, taking the chequered flag ahead of eventual champion Hauger.
He ended the season seventh in the standings, and one month later Williams signed him to their young driver programme. Before the year was over he also made his Formula 2 debut as a substitute at the HWA Racelab team and gained his first F1 mileage in the official young driver test in Abu Dhabi.
In 2022 Sargeant secured a full-time graduation to F2 with Carlin, and started the season by qualifying fourth at Bahrain. He converted that into sixth and seventh place finishes, but a week later in Jeddah had a nightmare weekend as he crashed in qualifying, collided with Jack Doohan in the sprint race and finished 12th in the feature.
At Imola he finished sixth from reversed-grid pole and then seventh in the feature race after a mistake, then at Circuit de Catalunya turned around his form to finish higher than he was starting and claimed his first F2 podium and then a fourth place.
Sargeant moved up to fourth in the championship with his second podium in Baku, then at Silverstone he claimed his first pole position and converted it into a maiden win, enough to convince Williams he was ready for F1.
Post-race penalties meant Sargeant was handed a second win at the Red Bull Ring, lifting him to second in the standings, then his second pole position came at Paul Ricard by the closest of margins. But technical trouble meant no points, and a lap one collision at the Hungaroring meant two retirements in a row. At Spa he also retired from the sprint race following a crash, but rebounded to finish fifth in the feature race to keep himself third in the championship.
Zandvoort, like the Hungaroring, was a one-point weekend for Sargeant as eighth in the sprint race was followed by another opening lap crash in the feature race. It was a similar Sunday story at Monza, although in the Saturday sprint race he did finish fifth to maintain his place in the points standings.
In the lengthy break before the season finale, Sargeant made his F1 practice debut with Williams in his home grand prix at Circuit of the Americas. The following day Williams confirmed him as one their second driver for 2023, alongside Alexander Albon, providing he placed high enough in F2 to secure an FIA superlicence.
A smooth final weekend in Abu Dhabi delivered a pair of top-six finishes and fourth in the final championship standings. That confirmed him as the top-scoring rookie of 2022 – and an F1 driver for 2023.
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