Sargeant: “F1-F2 gap too wide, difficult to arrive prepared”

For Logan Sargeant, 2023 represented his debut season in Formula 1. A complex year, as often happens for rookies, even if the American seems to have demonstrated some additional difficulties in adapting to the single-seaters of the top series.

It's no secret that Williams accelerated his path in the preparatory categories, deciding to bring him to Formula 1 only after a year spent in Formula 2, where he performed well but didn't impress. The final fourth place in the standings, first among the rookies, pushed the British team to move forward, thus bringing him alongside the more experienced Alex Albon.

Speaking during the season finale, Sargeant looked back on his season, highlighting where he had made the most progress during his first year in the top flight. The impact was undoubtedly difficult, also because he revealed that he had struggled to fully understand how to use the grip guaranteed by the cars, which was far superior to what he was previously used to in other categories.

Although they are heavier, the reintroduction of ground effect cars has taken certain performances to the extreme, particularly in fast corners, which at the beginning of the year it felt was its weak point. An example of how much this can make a difference was also seen with the previous generation of cars in the internal duel between the two Haas rookies: at the start of the championship Mick Schumacher managed to be significantly more competitive than his teammate because Nikita Mazepin was not capable of carrying the same speed in the fast sections, such as in the long bend of the first sector in Spain. An aspect that also penalized Sargeant in the comparison with Albon, on which however the American driver worked during the season, showing good progress.

However, there are also other aspects that represented a clear departure from all his previous experiences, such as the braking capabilities of Formula 1 single-seaters, or the complexity in using certain functions of the steering wheel, which make numerous adjustments available in real time that can significantly alter the behavior of the car.

Elements which, clearly, are not so present and fundamental in the preparatory categories. The 2018 F2 Dallara chassis will now be replaced by a new car for 2024, bringing the support series more in line with F1's current ground effect cars. However, some aspects will remain unchanged, such as weight, given that even the new generation will still have a minimum mass of 788 kg.

Speaking to Motorsport.com about the transition from Formula 2, Sargeant underlined this gap between the two series: “[La F2] It definitely helped me 100%. I think F2 is a great series with great drivers, but I think the gap between the cars is probably a little too big for what it should be. In F1 there are a lot more details and a lot more things that contribute to performance than just getting in the car and driving like in F2.”

Photo by: Williams

Logan Sargeant in 2022 in Formula 2

“There are so many things you can do from a driving point of view that you can't do in an F2 car. I feel like this is the part that gets lost. In F2 you just get in and drive, whereas in F1 there are so many things that have to come together before being fast. And this is definitely an aspect that is missing from F2. And then yes, the cars, in my opinion, are not fast enough.”

Although there is clearly a difference given by the temperatures and characteristics of the tracks, which can reward different aspects of the two single-seaters, there tends to be a gap of at least ten seconds between Formula 1 and Formula 2. A situation clearly exacerbated by the fact that now the cars in the top series can count not only on more refined aerodynamics, but also on tires that guarantee greater grip. The times are long gone when, as in 2014 at the dawn of the turbo-hybrid era, Caterham and Marussia in the back rows in qualifying in Barcelona were unable to beat the time of the Formula 2 poleman.

Despite a challenging season, in the end Logan Sargeant managed to convince Williams management to renew his contract for another season, partly due to the progress shown during the year, partly due to the lack of concrete alternatives that did not require a another season of apprenticeship, as would have been the case if the choice had been diverted towards other debutants.

Reflecting on the year, Sargeant admitted that the most difficult aspect at the beginning was putting all the different aspects together: “I think the biggest challenge was putting the pieces together every single weekend. F1 weekend, there are so many variables and so many operational things to fine-tune. It's really difficult to put everything together perfectly over an entire weekend. And I think that's the most important thing. But experience helps putting all this together naturally. I think this is the aspect that has held me back at times and that I'm still trying to improve.”