If Sargeant had a disastrous weekend in Abu Dhabi and all the other guys scored well there was a danger that he would slip too far down the order, and Williams would be left searching for a Plan B.
In the end the team didn’t have to worry. Sargeant took sixth in the sprint and fifth in the feature, and few of his direct rivals had much luck. He slipped one place in the final order, but fourth was still more than enough to guarantee him the seat, and it was a decent effort for a rookie.
The team duly confirmed him today, and on Tuesday he will have a full day in the FW44 at the combined young driver/2023 Pirelli test day.
“Since joining our Driver Academy at the end of 2021, Logan has been able to fully integrate with the team at Grove while on the simulator,” said Capito. “And more recently at the track during the four free practice sessions he’s participated in.
“He’s had a strong rookie season in F2, and we are excited to watch him make the step up in F1. We are here to support that journey with him.”
Sargeant’s arrival is huge news for the sport. In recent years Scott Speed and Alex Rossi were the only Americans to reach F1, and both did so long before the current surge in popularity for the sport Stateside. Sargeant will have three home races next year in Miami, Austin and Las Vegas, and the attention around him is only going to build.
“I feel like in the end of the day I’ve put in as much hard work as anyone else to reach this point,” he said on Monday when asked about that US interest. “And I just have to look at it as prepare the best I possibly can to be the best driver I can possibly be next year.
“And hopefully I can represent well and make them proud. But I don’t think it’s any extra pressure to be honest. So I feel like I have high expectations for myself as it is.
“For me the goal was clear, I needed to get my superlicence.”
“If I’m being completely honest, I really haven’t thought too much into it yet. Just taking it day by day. I feel like it’s all done in the prep. If I prep the best I can, and drive to the best of my ability, that’s really all that’s in my control. That’s all I can do.”
He’s keen to downplay the timing of his arrival coinciding with the Drive to Survive era: “I like to think it’s just a happy coincidence. As I said, I’ve put in the hard work over the past however-many years. I made the commitment to move to Europe when I was young to make this dream a reality.
“I feel like I had a very good junior formula career. And I’m just looking forward to closing that chapter and moving on to the next.”