Sargeant afterwards 'happy' with title miss: 'Then I wouldn't be here'

Logan Sargeant will debut in Formula 1 at Williams in 2023, but for a while it did not seem like it would come to that. After a crash on the final weekend of the 2020 F3 championship, all seemed lost for the American. Yet that crash proved to be his salvation to finally make it to F1.

It is 2020 and after the sprint race at Mugello, Sargeant is on an equal number of points with Oscar Piastri in the battle for the Formula 3 championship. Sargeant starts from P2, where Piastri has to start from P16. However, things go wrong at the first corner. Sargeant gets into a sandwich between Lirim Zendeli and Sebastian Fernandez which means his race is over. Piastri grabs the title.

Sargeant misses out on F3 title

''It was a weird incident, honestly. I can’t even really tell you exactly what happened. I never watched it again; I didn’t want to see it again,'' said Sargeant in the Feeder Series Podcast. The title slipped out of his hands, but the future also looked bleak. Whereas Piastri could move on to F2 as champion, Sargeant had no chance in the next class.

Whether he had become champion or not, a place in F2 was not forthcoming for Sargeant. However, his failure to become champion meant he could still remain active in Formula 3 and he took his chance with Charouz Racing. A backmarker team, but under Sargeant's leadership, they won a race and the American also drove to the podium four times. Helping a small team to such results brought him into the picture at Williams, which contracted him for the Junior Team at the end of the year.

With Williams' support, the step up to Formula 2 was possible and there Sargeant impressed as well. With two wins and a fourth place in the championship, he earned his F1 seat for 2023. ''I guess everything happens for a reason because I probably wouldn’t have been here if I won that championship,'' concluded the new Williams driver.