Florida native Logan Sargeant had a dispiriting Friday and Saturday ahead of Sunday’s F1 United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas at Austin, Texas, qualifying last for both the main race and Sprint, before being soundly beaten by teammate Alex Albon in the shorter race.
That came after a sequence of recent race weekends with several accidents and retirements that placed the young American under pressure. But on Sunday, Sargeant had a quietly impressive turnaround.
Despite still running with the older-spec front wing Sargeant was a firm factor in the lower half of the midfield battle in which Williams finds itself. Sargeant was 12th of the 17 finishers, one position and 6.2 seconds behind Albon (which was reduced post-race to 1.2 second after a time penalty) and Sargeant was buoyed by his display.
After the race, race runner-up Lewis Hamilton and sixth-place finisher Charles Leclerc were disqualified after their cars failed postrace inspection. The double disqualification was good news for Sargeant, who was promoted into the top 10.
Sargeant therefore takes home his maiden point, the first for an American in Formula 1 since Michael Andretti at the 1993 Italian Grand Prix.
“I think mostly satisfied, proud of myself with the turnaround from yesterday, yesterday wasn’t a good day, picked myself up, found what I needed to, and had really good pace today,” Sargeant said.
“It was a good step in the right direction for sure, just sort of shows there is progress being made. I didn’t have the greatest two qualifying sessions here, but in previous rounds quali’s been a good step forward, today I showed a really good race pace, it was a good 56 laps.”
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