Shocking Details Revealed About Unplanned F1 Promotion of American Sensation Logan Sargeant: “Maybe Two Years Wasn’t Necessary”

Logan Sargeant will be one of the three rookies in the 2023 F1 season, alongside Oscar Piastri and Nyck de Vries. And impressively, the American, like the other two, is also coming on merit. The 22-year-old, in his very first full season of Formula 2, had impressed the Williams F1 team and was announced as Alex Albon’s teammate, replacing Nicholas Latifi for 2023.

Sergeant was announced as Williams’s academy driver in 2021 and had only driven a few times for Williams in F1. He also drove the Williams in the United States, the same week his signing was announced. Many fans believe that the signing can be attributed to the connection between Sargeant’s nationality and the rise of F1 in North America, and the United States in specific. 

But Williams says that it banked purely on the American’s potential. Testifying this claim, Williams sporting director Sven Smeets confessed that the team was so impressed that it scrapped its initial plan of developing Sargeant in F2 for two seasons. While talking to Motorsport, Smeets said, “When the season started, very quickly and especially Silverstone and the races after that, we started to see the potential that we maybe didn’t have to do two seasons with him in F2.”

“We didn’t say to him ‘you need to win F2 or you need to be second’, it was just his progression in F2, the raw speed he has shown in one lap, and himself maturing. It was also how he develops here in the sim sessions, doing his physical camps we have for them, doing the media training. All that was starting to go in a direction that, by summertime, we saw him as becoming one of our contenders,” Smeets added.

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Sargeant has a lot of expectations to meet from his nation and his team likewise. Can he compete against the new arrivals? And can he be the one to help bring back the glory days at Williams? 

Has Logan Sargeant got the spirit inside of him to win?

The American will be the torchbearer for his country in F1, being the first driver since Scott Speed in 2007, to compete for an entire season in F1. While many might dismiss Sargeant’s achievements as the reason behind his seat, one can’t turn their eye on his recent record.

In his first full season in F2 in 2022, he competed with Carlin and became the first countryman to win a feature race in the feeder series, which came at Silverstone. Moreover, he finished fourth overall, only a single point behind his teammate Liam Lawson.

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With his runs in F2, he seemed to have achieved his “American dream” earlier than anyone else would’ve anticipated. However, financial/sponsorship reasons too could’ve played their role in the team considering an early promotion for the 22-year-old.