When Logan Sargeant was just twelve years old, he came to Europe to begin his Formula One career. However, after only six races in his second season, the 23-year-old finds it difficult to maintain his motivation past the summer break.

While some recent F1 grid graduates, like Mick Schumacher and Oscar Piastri, had easy rides through the feeder series with one team, Sargeant’s rise through Formula Two and Formula Three was considerably more erratic, and his lack of funding occasionally threatened to put an end to his career.

Sargeant participated in three F3 seasons with three different teams; he began his career with Carlin and ultimately lost to Piastri and Theo Pourchaire in a fierce championship match with Prema Racing. After that, though, he transferred to perennial backmarkers Charouz for an unimpressive campaign rather than moving up to the F2 grid.

He made his full F2 debut with Carlin at the end of 2021, finishing fourth, and then graduated into F1 with the assistance of the Williams Driver Academy, taking Nicholas Latifi’s place. He had previously made a few stand-in appearances in F2 with HWA Racelab.

Nevertheless, without the early relocation to Europe, none of this would have been feasible. In an interview with Motor Sport the previous year, he described the decisions his family had to make, saying, “We had to make that decision to come here.” When we searched for the best competition, Europe consistently emerged as the top contender.

“That’s all you heard. That’s where you had to be if you wanted to go up against the best. That was simply the only motivation towards moving over here and see where that led. I don’t think it was totally focused on F1, there are so many great series out there. But this was the peak we were going for.”

Sargeant’s sacrifice, however, may soon be for nothing as there are rumors going around the paddock that Williams plans to replace the Florida-born racer with Mercedes prodigy Kimi Antonelli before the August summer break.

While Sargeant has displayed flashes of the skill and quickness that persuaded Williams to sign him for the 2023 campaign, he has committed numerous costly mistakes, especially in qualifying, and he now faces spending weekends tagging along at the back of the field as teammate Alex Albon battles for the final point-paying spots.