Florida isn’t what you’d call a hotbed of future Formula 1 drivers—in fact, no driver from anywhere in the U.S. has appeared in motor racing’s top competition since Alex Rossi in 2015—so it’s not a surprise that Fort Lauderdale native Logan Sargeant wasn’t born with dreams of Monaco and Monza. “My family was never a huge racing family,” the 22-year-old says. “My dad got me and my brother two go-karts for Christmas—I was 5, and he was 8—and it was just meant to be a bit of a hobby.” Soon, Sargeant was waking up early on Sunday mornings to watch Lewis Hamilton chase F1 championships, and, he recalls, “It got a little bit more serious than we anticipated.”
Crossing the Pond
Sargeant showed enough promise on the U.S. karting circuit that at age 12 he elected to eschew the more popular forms of domestic racing (i.e., the oval tracks of NASCAR) in favor of heading across the Atlantic to compete against the young European racers vying for future Formula 1 rides. That decision proved fruitful: As a teenager, he won the 2015 CIK-FIA World KF-Junior Championship—a positive sign for his career, as other winners include current F1 drivers Charles Leclerc, Alexander Albon, and Fernando Alonso—and soon after he graduated to the Formula 3 and later the Formula 2 series.
American Dream
Last year, Sargeant became the first U.S. driver to win a Formula 2 race, climbing to the top of the podium at the British Grand Prix feature race. By that time he had already joined the Williams Driver Academy, and at last fall’s U.S. Grand Prix, the English Formula 1 team—which is the second-most successful in F1 history, although it has struggled in recent years—announced he would be one of its two drivers this season. “[Williams] has given me so much support,” Sargeant says. “From the moment I walked in, they took me in with open arms, and they’ve done their best to shape me into the best driver that I can be.”
Homecoming King
With interest in F1 continuing to grow Stateside, Sargeant should have lots of fans at this season’s races in Miami, Austin, and Las Vegas. “You can definitely see the impact that Drive to Survive has made,” he says of the hit Netflix documentary series. “The amount of questions I get now compared to before is massively increased.” Establishing himself on the circuit won’t be easy, especially considering that Williams came in last in the 2022 F1 Constructors standings. Is Sargeant up to the challenge of competing against Red Bull and Ferrari (not to mention his talented teammate, Albon)? “I think that I am,” he says. “Every step of the way, I’ve been doing everything I can to be ready for that moment.”
