Sargeant ready to repay Williams faith: 'I need to finish the deal'

F1

Logan Sargeant will become America's next F1 driver – if he can grasp the golden opportunity granted to him by Williams

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Sargeant has been handed a 2023 Williams seat – if he can secure a superlicence

Williams

Colton Herta may have failed to get the FIA super licence that would have allowed him to drive for AlphaTauri in 2023, but an American driver will be on the Formula 1 grid next year – assuming that he gets a licence of his own.

Logan Sargeant’s graduation to a Williams seat was announced in a curious fashion in Austin on Saturday. He’s been favourite for the drive for some months now, but always with the proviso that he has to secure the all-important licence.

He currently lies third in the FIA F2 standings, but it’s all so close behind him that a disastrous Abu Dhabi finale weekend could see him slide down the order.

Sargeant needs to finish fifth to get his superlicence, but if he completes all the running Williams has planned, detailed below, he only needs to be seventh in the championship once the dust settles in Yas Marina.

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Sargeant ran FP1 at COTA, and will be running more sessions this season

Williams

Because of that uncertainty the team was not in a position to announce him or even intimate that he was indeed likely to get the drive.

He was thrust into the limelight in Austin when he drove Nicholas Latifi’s car in FP1 on Friday, his second F1 outing following an appearance in the Abu Dhabi young driver test at the end of last year.

On Saturday the team scheduled a press release that basically followed up on the FP1 run by saying that he would have further FP1 outings in Mexico and Abu Dhabi, and that he would be doing some private testing over the winter in a 2021 car.

All it really said was that this was part of his programme to develop him as a driver – although one could read between the lines and work out just why so much effort was being put into him.

That release came out at 11.30am US time, which coincided with the start of the FIA team boss conference, in which Williams boss Jost Capito was a last minute replacement for an ill Mattia Binotto.

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Sargeant has claimed two race wins in impressive debut F2 campaign

Grand Prix Photo

Asked about the FP1 run and if he felt Sargeant was ready to race in 2023, Capito didn’t appear to follow the script: “Yeah, we feel he’s ready to race and, under the condition that he has enough super licence points after Abu Dhabi, he will be our second driver next year.”

In other words he appeared to go somewhat further than his own communications department had expected him to do by expressly stating in public for the first time what we already knew, which was Sargeant will get the drive if he gets those vital licence points.

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Speaking a little later about the licence conundrum Capito made it clear that any mileage is useful, especially given that each FP1 session earns a useful extra point to add to those earned in F2.

“I think we want to make the risk as minimum as possible,” he said. “And on the other side, we want to prepare Logan as good as possible for next season. That means he has to maximise the time in the car this year.

“So that’s why we gave give him three FP1. And it gives him additional superlicence points. They’re for sure not hurting.

“And then he will also do the young driver test after Abu Dhabi. So it’s part of the preparation now to get Logan in the best possible position for the beginning of next season.”

So how good is Sargeant? At 21, he has an impressive CV. A karting world champion in 2015, he quickly moved through F4 to FIA F3 by 2019.

A strong second F3 season in 2020 saw him finish third in a championship, just three points behind winner and team-mate Piastri.

Unlike the Aussie he couldn’t do a deal to move up to F2 for 2021, and instead he got stuck in F3 for a third year with the unfancied Charouz team. His career could have stalled at that point.

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Extra season in F3 caused Sargeant to dig deep, and ultimately enhanced reputation

DPPI

“2020 was my best season to date, at that point,” Sargeant recalls. “It wasn’t looking great. You always keep the faith and the hope, but we didn’t really have a great direction in where we wanted to go.

“We did have some opportunities to do some sports cars, GTs, even a possible IndyCar seat. But you know, the F3 thing was there and it was the chance to stay in Europe.

“To be honest, I was quite tentative about taking that deal, but I had a great support team around me between my parents, my brother as well, my trainer, and they all pushed me to take that challenging opportunity and make the most of it.”

Indeed he impressed by winning a couple of races and finishing seventh in the championship.

“I was in a difficult position,” he recalls. “I had to take an F3 deal that I wasn’t certain I wanted to do, but at the end of the day that helped me mature as a driver and also pushed me to be a leader to bring what was a below par team to midfield by the end of the season. I think we did a really good job there.”

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Williams believes Sargeant is ready to step up

Williams

Before the end of 2021 he was signed up as a Williams Academy driver and set up with a Carlin F2 deal for this year.

He’s had a strong rookie F2 season. After some solid early point scoring second place in the Baku feature race was a decent result, and then he won in both Silverstone and Austria.

It was also around that time that the original Williams plan of taking Oscar Piastri on loan from Alpine for 2023 began to unravel as it became apparent that the Australian was heading towards McLaren.

Instead Williams began to realise that it didn’t need someone else’s protégé anyway – the team’s own youngster was progressing faster than expected.

“To be honest, I entered the season with no expectations,” says Sargent. “It was simply to go and do the job to the best of my ability and see where that put me at the end of the season.

“Obviously, when you start having extremely strong qualifying sessions, and getting some race wins, the expectation shifts, and now it’s set at a higher level. And yeah, I think at that point, it was full focus on trying to secure a seat for 2023.”

Over the past few weeks that scenario has become a reality, pending of course the granting of a superlicence. It’s not been a straightforward progression for him.

“Honestly, I think as a driver, you never give up on the belief and the hope and you just keep working hard to hopefully, eventually, reach a goal.

“And yeah, Williams have given me an absolutely unbelievable opportunity to race in F2 this year, and the support they’ve given me gives confidence to a young driver. And now I just need to finish the deal in Abu Dhabi.”

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Sargeant is first US F1 driver since Alexander Rossi

Williams

Like the last two Americans to race in F1, Scott Speed and Alex Rossi, Sargeant has followed the European route rather than tried to make the sideways move from IndyCar.

It looks to have been a good strategy.

“I just feel like I’ve been putting in sort of all the hard work in Europe through my whole career, and made that commitment early, that this was the route I wanted to take.

“And I feel like there’s just been a long road of dedication and hard work that’s gotten me to this point. And I still need to go out and earn it in the last round.”

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Capito says Williams never had intention to “park” Sargeant, wanting its juniors to have clear progression

Williams

Sargeant is adamant that his Williams support has been crucial.

“Well, it’s definitely been massive, obviously, I feel like not only have they helped me to be a better racing driver, but also just a better person in general.

“To give me my first F1 test, two months after they had signed me last year, was obviously a show of support. And that gave me confidence, and what an experience that was.

“Throughout this year, obviously I’ve had a lot of races alongside F1. So a lot of the focus has been on F2, but in all the gaps we’ve been working extremely hard on the simulator, as well as doing the best I could to get physically prepared for when a F1 test would come available.”

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Taking him is a leap of faith for Capito, but the German is confident that Sargeant won’t let him down.

“From my history, I’m known to get young drivers in quickly,” says the team boss. “Because that’s the best way to find out what the potential really is, and not parking them.

“And if you see that somebody is ready, like you see Logan this season, he is ready, then we can take that decision. He wouldn’t have been lost if we would have decided he needs another year in F2.

“Then we would have done that as well. But we see that coming in as a rookie, winning races and showing that performance in qualifying, it’s the right thing to step up.”

Given the momentum around Drive to Survive, and the addition of Miami and Las Vegas to the schedule, this is the perfect time for an American driver to arrive on the scene. The marketing value for F1 as a whole, and the Williams team in particular, is immense. However, Capito plays it down.

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Sargeant had the eyes of the F1 world on him before announcement was made

Williams

“It is a good for F1 to have an American driver in F1,” he says. “We didn’t pick Logan for the academy because he’s American, we picked him because of his success and his past in racing. And if we take the kids or we put into the academy, it’s the objective to get them in the F1 car.

“And I think that it’s also then true to the young drivers. If you have then a seat, if you have a young driver who is ready for F1, and you have the seat, then you have to put these young drivers into the seat, otherwise, you’ve done something wrong.

“And that’s why we came to that conclusion that is the right thing. And that Logan is American, I think it’s nice to have, but it’s not the initiation of the decision.”

Williams has a good record at bringing on youngsters, with George Russell the most obvious recent example.

“I think we have the right environment for young drivers,” says Capito. “Also the situation we have with Alex [Albon], he supports having a rookie and a young driver, because Alex is the team leader.

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Sargeant now has to deliver in F2 finale to secure his future

Williams

“He has the experience, still being young. And his attitude also towards Logan is that he’s not holding back. He’s supportive of Logan, he supports a young driver.

“And his charisma and his character is absolutely in line with getting a young driver in the team. And also when we had the discussion with Alex, he was also pushing to have Logan as a second driver besides him. So that’s what Alex wanted as well.”

Assuming he gets that licence, it’s going to be fascinating to see how things work out for Sargeant – and indeed how he fares relative to Piastri at McLaren…

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