Logan Sargeant, the dashing 23-year-old Fort Lauderdale native who is the only American driver on the popular Formula 1 circuit, can always draw a crowd, especially when he’s promoting Sunday’s Miami Grand Prix.
Amaya Mateo and Megumi Schiroma, a pair of 18-year-old seniors from Hollywood, left Pembroke Pines Charter High School on Tuesday afternoon and drove to South Beach, almost an hour, to join the boisterous throng of Sargeant fans on Lincoln Road.
Upon arrival at the storefront location, Mateo and Schiroma joined about 200 others.
The place was buzzing with anticipation.
The vibe was tangible.
The crowd was young, energetic, excited and eager.
Sargeant, who has experienced meteoric success in his racing career, loves seeing such F1 enthusiasm in South Florida, and loves knowing he can help bring more publicity to this mostly European sport in America in hyper-local fashion.
“To be racing where it all started for me, 20 minutes from home, 20 minutes from where I grew up,” Sargeant said, “is special.”
Beneath all the excitement and energy, however, is the pressure of being in the top tier of your sport and staying there.
Sargeant, the face of American F1 racing, is feeling that in a big way.
There’s already a throng of drivers lined up to take advantage of his tenuous hold on his spot on the Williams Racing team.
In his second year on the grid, Sargeant has only collected one point in 26 starts, and that was a 10th-place finish.
Worse, last month’s two-point infraction at the China Grand Prix means he now has eight penalty points, four away from a one-race suspension under the penalty points system. He now has to go 11 races without collecting another four penalty points.
All of this has the worldwide F1 media speculating that drivers such as Andrea Kimi Antonelli could replace Sargeant as a new Williams teammate alongside Alex Albon, and they’re saying the change could come in a few months.
As you might figure, it puts lots of pressure on Sargeant, including for the Miami Grand Prix, in which he finished last a year ago.
“I think in Formula 1, there’s always pressure,” he said. “There’s pressure at the top of any elite sport. But I think that the biggest thing is just the pressure I put on myself because I expect the most out of myself and I expect myself to perform.”
Sargeant’s fans, at this gathering, mostly teenage and 20-something females, didn’t seem concerned about his status on Tuesday.
Mateo was in disbelief minutes before Sargeant came out to address the crowd.
“I’m a big fan of Logan Sargeant,” she said, explaining she’s followed him since his F2 days in 2021.
“She’s getting me into F1,” Schiroma said, nodding toward her friend.
For the record, Sargeant’s family and a race official said the mostly female crowd was unique to Sargeant and being in Miami, that most F1 crowds aren’t so heavily young and female.
Regardless, in a way this is the type of crowd that Sargeant, the only American F1 driver in eight years, wants to draw.
They’re young and energetic.
It’s also a positive showing for Liberty Media, which took over in F1 in 2017. Formula 1 now has three U.S. races — Miami, Las Vegas and Austin — as it continues pushing its way into the American market.
It’s having great success, in part because the circuit of technology-packed cars that reach 220 mph is the subject of the Netflix’s docuseries “Drive to Survive.”
In the 2023 season, F1 races had an average of 1.1 million American TV views, according to the Sports Business Journal via ESPN, which doubled its total from 2018.
Sargeant is happy to help.
Sargeant and his older brother, Dalton, a former NASCAR driver, enjoyed water sports growing up in their home near the Intracoastal Waterway in Fort Lauderdale.
They began karting when Logan was around 8 years old and they quickly had success. Eventually they moved to Europe (Dalton was 14, Logan was 11) and continued having success.
“At a certain point we were just looking for where the most competition was and that happened to be in Europe,” Logan said, “and once you’re in Europe, that puts you on the path to F1.”
In 2016, Logan began climbing the ladder, from F4 to F3 to F2, and after getting enough points to earn his Super License, eventually F1 in 2023.
Logan is one of only 58 American F1 drivers ever.
But he has a big hill to climb to become noteworthy.
Mario Andretti, who moved to America from Italy (actually, what is now Croatia) at 15 years old, is the best-known American driver. He won 12 F1 races and one championship.
Andretti’s win at the 1978 Dutch Grand Prix is the last time an American won a F1 race.
Phil Hill is the only American-born F1 driver to win, and Eddie Cheever has the most starts (132) by an American.
Logan Sargeant’s fans were thrilled they had an opportunity to glimpse Sargeant up close and in-person.
It’s not often the hometown kid gets home.
Once Sargeant took the stage alongside an emcee/questioner, he didn’t disappoint.
He said he loved basking in the South Florida sunshine as opposed to living in often-gloomy England. He mentioned the golf courses here, water sports, his dad’s BBQ, mentioned Drake and Eminem among his favorite musicians, and legendary Silverstone, home of the British Grand Prix, as one of his favorite tracks, because he enjoys the classic Grand Prix tracks and Silverstone has “character.”
Sargeant, who is staying with family for this year’s race after staying at a hotel for last year’s race, even scored points with Miami Dolphins fans when he mentioned he was having edge rusher Bradley Chubb on his podcast, and said it’d be “cool” to be racing around Hard Rock Stadium for the second consecutive year.
“I’ve watched countless games in that stadium,” Sargeant said. And he’ll be driving there this weekend.
As a whole, Williams Racing is struggling this year. It’s one of the worst teams on the circuit so far.
They’re hoping to make a strong showing at the Miami Grand Prix.
“Pressure builds when things aren’t going right,” Sargeant said. “But, look, I think we haven’t had a great start as a whole. There’s bits we can clean up as a team, there’s bits I can clean up on my side.
“But when you put everything together and look at the positives, there’s a lot of things that are going well and if we get it all together there’s good potential on the table.”
