Logan Sargeant says he doesn’t feel any extra pressure being the first full-time American on the Formula 1 grid in 15 years after confirmation of his Williams seat for 2023.
Sargeant earned the final points needed for his Super License by securing fourth in the Formula 2 drivers’ championship in Abu Dhabi over the weekend, prompting Williams to officially confirm his race seat on Monday. The Floridian will be the first American to race full-time in F1 since Scott Speed in 2007, but Sargeant says that as much as he wants to earn the support of his country next season, he’s not going to let the expectations of others become a distraction.
“At the end of the day I’ve put in as much hard work as anyone else to reach this point,” Sargeant said. “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. I have high expectations for myself as it is.
“As long as I prepare the best I can physically, mentally, put my time in at the factory in Grove and do everything I possibly can to be the best driver I can be, then I have to live with that. Hopefully, that’s good enough to stay in F1 for a long time.”
Sargeant’s promotion hasn’t been accompanied by the same amount of U.S.-based interest that Colton Herta’s potential move to AlphaTauri carried, but Sargeant says he wasn’t frustrated to see a push for another driver to be given a Super License exemption when he had committed to the European ladder a number of years ago.
“Not really, Colton is a fantastic driver, super, super quick, but at the same time I was very comfortable in my position at Williams,” he said. “I knew we had a great thing going here. I was just trying to stay in my lane and do the best I can to achieve the best results in Formula 2 and get my own Super License.”
Although Williams officially confirmed Sargeant’s seat on Monday, he had already been announced back at the United States Grand Prix provided he secured a Super License, and he says it led to a measured approach to his final F2 weekend where he scored points in both races.
“I was trying to find a balance between risk versus reward, really,” he said. “It was actually not as much pressure as I expected, because going into the weekend, I had become quite understanding of what was at stake, and quite at peace with it. So I just took the pressure off.
“I knew if we executed the way we could and had the same pace that we’ve had all year, everything would be fine. But for sure in the races, I had to find a good balance between being overaggressive and underaggressive, I guess you could say.
“I wanted to stay very realistic and grounded and know that I still have a job to do. So for sure, there was pressure on the weekend, and there was a bit of weight off my shoulders when we got the job done yesterday.
“But to be honest, like waking up this morning, it felt very natural. I feel very at home within the team, and it just felt like we were progressing on what we’ve been working on the whole season. It really felt like everything just fell into place.”
