Logan Sargeant has revealed that he was “100 per cent” sure that his dream of driving in Formula 1 was dead in 2021.
Sargeant has been promoted to F1 for the 2023 campaign with Williams, having spent a year as its junior driver while racing in Formula 2.
Prior to his sole F2 season, Sargeant spent three years in Formula 3 and narrowly missed out on the title to Oscar Piastri in 2020.
During his final year in the series in 2021 with Charouz, Sargeant admits that he thought a future F1 drive was off the cards, as he began to focus on establishing a racing career elsewhere.
“I was 100 per cent sure it [the F1 dream] was dead at that point to be honest,” Sargeant said.
“At that point I just thought ‘OK, it’s going to be heading towards the LMP or IndyCar route’, which at the time I was content with.
“It was just my reality at the time, that what I felt like was the only two places I could still turn to.
“The F3 seat was really just to pass some time and stay in a car and help the team move forward, a different position for myself.”
Sargeant even took part in sportscar races during the 2021 season to further expand his racing portfolio beyond single-seaters.
“The LMP2 races, GT races, just a bit of fun and get a bit of experience in endurance and sportscar racing,” he commented.
“I feel like in the end it was all extremely beneficial and helped me massively, so I‘m glad I did it all.”
Despite being from the United States where there are established racing categories such as NASCAR and IndyCar, Sargeant moved to Europe when he was 12.
Sargeant says that reaching F1 wasn’t his sole focus, but understood that the best opportunity to maximise his career lay across the Atlantic Ocean.
“I think it got to the point where we had to make that decision,” he said. “It was early, we were just sort of looking for where the best competition was.
“It was always ‘Europe, Europe, Europe’ – that’s all you heard was that’s where you had to be if you want to go against the best.
“That was simply the only motivation towards moving over here was to race against the best and see where that led.
“I don’t think it was necessarily completely focused on Formula 1, there’s so many great racing series out there and obviously you want to be a driver professionally, but this was the peak that we were going for.”
