Fire on Fridays: What’s Next for Logan Sargeant, Once America’s F1 Hope?

On Feb. 18, it was announced that Logan Sargeant would be stepping away from his European Le Mans Series seat before the 2025 season even began.

Sargeant was set to compete in Genesis’ brand new GMR-001 LMDh prototype. He was due to drive the No. 18 ORECA 07-Gibson for IDEC Sport with Genesis Magma Racing.

IDEC and Genesis will now have to scramble to find a new teammate for Mathys Jaubert and former Indy NXT driver Jamie Chadwick before the season opener in Barcelona on April 6.

The reason for Sargeant’s departure is unclear at the time of this writing, however all signs point to the move being one of Sargeant’s own volition, according to a post IDEC Sport made on X breaking the news.

Following the decision of Logan Sargeant to stepping away from the sport to pursue other interests, IDEC SPORT and Genesis Magma Racing are taking note of his decision and will announce his substitute in the next few days. We wish Logan all the best in his future projects. pic.twitter.com/r6XaCKePfa

— IDEC SPORT Racing (@IDECSportRacing) February 18, 2025

Sargeant joined IDEC and Genesis after losing his Formula 1 ride at Williams halfway through 2024 after a year-and-a-half with the team. However that year and a half was … turbulent to say the least, marred by several crashes. He retired from the Qatar Grand Prix in 2023 after feeling ill halfway through the race, and in the Australian Grand Prix in 2024, he was forced to give up his car to teammate Alex Albon after Albon crashed his in practice and Williams had no backups nor time to fix the car.

Despite speculation Sargeant would be released after one season, Williams retained him for 2024. But after more crashes and a 16th-place finish in the Dutch Grand Prix, Sargeant was finally removed from the car in favor of Franco Colapinto for the remainder of the 2024 season.

Sargeant finished his 37-race tenure with Williams with just one championship point that came in one of his home races in the United States, at Circuit of the Americas. His six retirements and the aforementioned Australia withdrawal sum up his F1 career best: The results didn’t live up to the hype he received in the lower series.

Williams brought Sargeant up to F1 following his impressive seasons in Formula 2 and Formula 3. His F2 season in 2022 in particular drew a lot of attention, as he won two races and finished fourth in the final standings. He was arguably the United States’ best shot at getting an American on the grid since Alexander Rossi way back in 2015. Some even saw potential in him to become the first American to score a podium since Michael Andretti over 30 years ago in 1993.

Now, not only is Sargeant’s F1 career seemingly over, his racing career as a whole might be up in the air as well.

But why? He had a ride lined up this season. Granted, it was in sports cars, but a ride nonetheless. Why leave this late in ELMS Silly Season? Does ELMS even have a Silly Season? I digress.

One has to think that Sargeant would leave such an opportunity if another one was opening up. His name has long been linked to the NTT IndyCar Series for 2025, mostly with PREMA Racing, though those seats have been filled by Callum Ilott and Robert Shwartzman.

In fact, all IndyCar seats have been accounted for this season, though one is currently up in the air right now at Juncos Hollinger Racing.

Conor Daly is currently signed to run the full season with JHR but could potentially lose one of his biggest sponsors in Polkadot due to voting dilemmas within the company. While Daly said on his podcast Speed Street that it would not affect him for the season opener in St. Petersburg on March 2, who knows if he’s guaranteed the entire season? As such, Sargeant could be in position to take the seat, as he does have the funding to pretty much go wherever he wants.

Sargeant is the nephew of Harry Sargeant III, an energy and shipping magnate who operates multiple multibillion-dollar companies. As such, money is not an issue for Sargeant, and if he can outbid Daly for a seat for most of the season, it might make sense for him to leave his ELMS seat for an arguably more popular motorsport — a series that, might I add, is in his home country.

But IndyCar isn’t the only place Sargeant could go. NASCAR is a very reasonable option as well. If he wanted to take a one-off ride with Trackhouse Racing’s PROJECT91 program specifically designed for racers from other disciplines to try their hand at NASCAR Cup Series racing, Sargeant could take the opportunity if presented.

And if he wanted to race in a lower NASCAR series, he has a brother who could help him out.

For the NASCAR fans reading this, remember Dalton Sargeant? The 2017 ARCA Menards Series runner-up? A once promising driver who was cut from GMS Racing’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series team halfway through 2018 and never raced again? Perhaps you were like the author of this column and didn’t realize until recently that Dalton is Logan’s older brother.

Should Logan choose to take a part-time ride in a lower NASCAR series, Dalton could easily serve as his driver coach. Granted, the cars (and trucks, for that matter) have changed greatly since Dalton last stepped behind the wheel of a stock car or truck, but any knowledge he could pass to his little brother could help him.

But let’s come back down to earth for a second. Sure, Sargeant likely has the funding to go anywhere he wants. But up until Tuesday, he was set on going ELMS racing and then suddenly backed out. The deal was in place for over two months and he suddenly decided to seek other opportunities.

Sargeant himself has not publicly commented on his departure from ELMS, meaning nobody knows what’s next for the 24-year-old. So with this sudden change, is this it? Will Sargeant, once seen as the United States’ rising star in Formula 1 racing, even race at all in 2025?

The most obvious answer is that nobody truly knows until Sargeant puts out some sort of statement explaining his situation. It would be a shame if we don’t see the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., native on track at all this season, which would make finding a ride for 2026 much harder.

But unfortunately, it would not be the first time a talented Sargeant brother never raced again.

Dalton tore up the ARCA Menards Series East and West in 2015, winning the season-opening West race that year and finishing fourth in the final standings in the East. He moved up to ARCA’s national series part time in 2016, driving for Venturini Motorsports. Despite running only 15 races of the 20-race season, Sargeant scored a win at Berlin Raceway and finished eighth in the final standings.

Running for the now-defunct Cunningham Motorsports in 2017, Sargeant won three races and was in championship contention, but ended up finishing runner-up to Austin Theriault. He then moved up to the Truck Series in 2018 with GMS full time and was doing very respectably — it was clear with a little bit of development, Sargeant could become a very good NASCAR driver.

But after the 16th race of the season, just before Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, Sargeant was replaced by Spencer Gallagher due to “unfortunate circumstances” with Sargeant Motorsports. Dalton Sargeant never raced again.

It would be highly unfortunate to see Logan go down the same route as Dalton. It was a shame Dalton ever went down that road to begin with. While Logan couldn’t quite cut it in F1, he absolutely should go race elsewhere. The ELMS ride could have led to something better in 2026, but he absolutely ought to find some sort of seat time for 2025, because no matter where he winds up, he could be a strong driver.

It is still disappointing that it all came to a crashing halt for Sargeant. What was once a promising career in the making in F2 has flamed out all too quickly, and now, the driver who was once America’s next F1 star might not even be racing this season.

But that’s the cruel, unfortunate nature of racing sometimes.