Logan Sargeant was ‘100% sure’ in 2021 that his F1 chances were ‘dead’

Logan Sargeant, who will make his debut for Williams in 2023, thought his F1 dream was dead back in 2021, when he was in his 2nd season of F3.

Logan Sargeant was ‘100% sure’ in 2021 that his F1 chances were ‘dead’

Logan Sargeant

Logan Sargeant’s opportunity at Formula 1 came very fast. Last year, there were reports that Williams was looking to replace Nicholas Latifi with Nyck de Vries. But then the ‘silly season’ domino effect came into play. Explained simply: Sebastian Vettel announced his retirement, Fernando Alonso replaced him at Aston Martin, and Pierre Gasly replaced Alonso at Alpine after Oscar Piastri turned them down for McLaren. Then, AlphaTauri announced de Vries as Gasly’s replacement.

They had originally wanted Colton Herta but were unable to secure a super license exemption for him. So they went for de Vries, who was high off a fantastic debut with Williams in Monza. As mentioned earlier, he was a prime candidate to replace Latifi. So, Williams soon announced Sargeant as their man to replace Latifi instead – when he was not even eligible to compete in F1. But he secured his super license with a P4 in F2 and was given the seat promised to him.

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But back in 2021, when he was in his second season of Formula 3, things didn’t look good for him. In the first season, he had only barely lost out on the title, but the second one wasn’t nearly as good, and he only finished P7. At that time, Sargeant thought his F1 dream was dead: “I was 100% sure it was dead at that point, to be honest. At that point I just thought, ‘okay, it’s going to be heading towards the LMP or IndyCar route’. Which at the time I was content with.” he said, as per RaceFans.

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He added: “It was just my reality at the time, that’s where I felt like was my only two places I could still turn to. The F3 seat was just simply to pass some time and stay in a car and help a team move forward, a different position for myself. The LMP2 races, GT race, was just again a bit of fun and get a bit of experience in endurance and sports car racing. To be honest I feel like it in the end it was all extremely beneficial and helped me massively and so I’m glad I did it all.”

Read More: Logan Sargeant confesses his first F1 drive will be “the saddest day” of his life

Logan Sargeants on his targets for 2023

Logan Sargeant
Logan Sargeant

2023 will be Logan Sargeant’s first season in the sport, even though he already has considerable experience of driving the new generation of cars through practice sessions and the post-season test. In Bahrain, he will become F1’s first American driver since Alexander Rossi – fans will hope he can stick around longer than Rossi did. And give a better account of himself. As for his personal targets for the upcoming season, the American driver said:

“There’s definitely no point putting a numerical position on it. I think in the end of the day, I need to come into this season willing to learn as much as I can, be open, be adaptable, and ultimately that’s how I’m going to eventually get the most performance I can out of the car. Obviously, ideally [I want] to be on top of it as soon as possible, if not immediately, and go from there. So I don’t want to put a date on it or anything. It’s just going to be about fast-tracking as much as I can.”

As the sport’s only American driver, there will definitely be some pressure on Sargeant to deliver. It’ll be interesting to see how he copes with this, and how he can perform in relation to his teammate, Alex Albon. Even if he’s a rookie, at a minimum, he’ll be expected to do better than Latifi did. If not, he will definitely be under fire on social media.

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