For most of his Formula One career, it has seemed like Logan Sargeant’s time in the sport would be short. But if we look back on his junior career, we see a young driver with immense skill and potential; this begs the question: what happened?

Junior Career

Formula Three

It’s the final race of the 2020 Formula Three Championship. Teammates Oscar Piastri and Logan Sargeant are tied neck and neck at 160 points. Sargeant had taken the lead earlier in the season, but a series of unlucky collisions meant Piastri had caught up to the American driver. Sargeant started the final race in front of Piastri and maintained that lead initially. But everything fell apart at the second corner. Sargeant and another driver touched tyres and ran off the track. Sargeant’s race was over before the end of the first lap and his chance for the title with it. Piastri finished the race in seventh, scoring just enough points to win the title over ART GP’s Theo Pourchaire, who leapfrogged Sargeant in the standings. Sargeant finished the season in third. While both Piastri and Pourchaire would be moving up to Formula Two in 2021, Sargeant’s future was less clear.

It costs roughly a million dollars per year to drive in F3, and twice that to drive in F2. At that price, a drive in F2 simply wasn’t an option for Sargeant.

There are generally three ways to pay for a feeder series drive: rich parents, sponsorships, or a junior development team. Formula One teams will select young drivers and aid their development by helping to pay for the high costs and provide other benefits. While other junior drivers like Piastri had been part of a junior program for many years, Sargeant was not, leaving him (and his family) responsible for nearly the entire bill. Left with limited choices, Sargeant started looking into racing options outside of Europe.

However, Sargeant eventually found a feeder series drive for 2021, but it wouldn’t be in F2. Instead, Sargeant spent another year in F3, this time with the Charouz Racing Team—the team that finished last in 2020. Sargeant finished the season in 7th, having scored 102 of the team’s 127 points, along the way earning the team its first-ever podium and win. Even more importantly for his career, at the end of 2021, Sargeant got picked up by Williams Driver Academy and was promoted to F2 for 2022.

Formula Two

Logan Sargeant joined Carlin Motorsport, a powerhouse team in the lower series. Partnering him was Redbull junior driver Liam Lawson, in his second year in F2. Over the course of the season, Sargeant put in an impressive drive, winning two feature races back to back, becoming the first American to ever win an F2 feature race. However, the second half of the F2 season saw a turn in fortune for the American driver. Sargeant retired five times throughout the next six race weekends (each weekend is comprised of two races), only earning 33 points in the remainder of the season. Sargeant finished the season in fourth as the highest-scoring rookie with 148 points, only one point behind Lawson.

These race results are impressive, but more notable for Sargeant’s potential is his head to head qualifying record. Due to differences between teams and factors outside of a driver’s control during a race, how a driver compares to their teammate in qualifying is generally regarded as one of the best measures of one’s skill as a driver.

Throughout his F2 season, Sargeant as a rookie out-qualified Lawson ten to two. Fast forward to today, Lawson is one of the highest-rated young drivers and is generally considered to be a major challenger to Daniel Riccardo’s VCARB seat.

Move to Formula One

When is became clear that Williams was not going to re-sign Nicholas Latiffi for the 2023 Formula One season, attention turned towards who would replace him. Initially, Logan Sargeant wasn’t even in consideration.

Williams’ first target was then Alpine reserve driver Oscar Piastri. The plan was for Fernando Alonso to re-sign with Alpine and Piastri would go on a two-year loan to Williams, while Sargeant competed for another year or two in F2 However, Alonso made a shock move to Aston Martin, and Piastri made an even more shocking move to McLaren.

William’s next target was Mercedes reserve driver Nyck De Vries. Previously in the 2022 F1 season, when Williams driver Alex Albon got appendicitis, De Vries subbed in for the driver at the Italian Grand Prix and scored points on debut. However, De Vries too signed with a different team, this time Redbull’s junior team Alpha Tauri.

The biggest thing standing in the way of Sargeant’s promotion to F1 was his lack of experience. Sargeant had only been in F2 for one year, more importantly, he had only been with Williams for one year. Being a junior driver usually provides one with opportunities to practice driving in an F1 car both in a simulator and on track. The increase in speed, weight, and G Force from an F2 car to an F1 car means that the jump into F1 is a big adjustment. Sargeant’s limited time as a Williams junior driver meant that he had not been provided with as many chances to actually drive an F1 car prior to his debut, especially in comparison to Piastri and De Vries who were both long-time members of different teams’ junior programs.

In an ideal world, Sargeant would have spent another year in F2 while gaining more experience as a Williams junior driver, but with both of their top targets scooped up by other teams, Sargeant became Latiffi’s most likely replacement.

Racing for Williams

It was always going to be hard joining the slowest team on the grid and being partnered with the highly rated Albon, but other drivers like George Russell had been in similar situations and proven themselves. For Sargeant, this wasn’t the case.

Over the course of the 2023 season, Sargeant only scored one point, after two drivers further up the grid were disqualified. Albon scored 27 points. To make matters worse for the American, Sargeant crashed on multiple occasions throughout the season, incurring more than four million dollars worth of damages.

Perhaps the pressure would have been lower if Sargeant’s fellow rookies Oscar Piastri and Nyck De Vries had performed similarly, but while Sargeant struggled to get to grips with the car, Piastri was F1’s best rookie in years. De Vries initially performed worse than Sargeant, however, he ended up being replaced after only 10 races. And so Sargeant was left as the only struggling rookie on the grid. He finished the season in 21st, only placing above De Vries.

Sargeant’s 2024 season wouldn’t be much better. As of the summer break, he has yet to score any points. Although his driving has improved, as demonstrated by his 11th place finish at the British Grand Prix, this improvement has not been enough to save his seat.

With Williams officially announcing Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon as their driver line-up for 2025, it seems Sargeant’s career as a full-time F1 driver will end in Abu Dhabi, if not earlier. While I wouldn’t say that his career has been untimely cut short, it is a shame that Sargeant will probably never reach his immense potential in Formula One.