The Florida Man of Formula 1

Logan Sargeant, the one American driver in Formula 1, is zipping across the slender streets of Baku, Azerbaijan, at roughly 200 miles an hour. His head bounces contained in the cockpit as a wheel shudders over a rumble strip. It’s laborious to listen to over the banshee shriek of his V6 engine, carrying 3 times the horsepower of a run-of-the-mill Porsche Carrera.

Then the noise stops, and Baku vanishes. We’re inside a low-slung brick constructing nestled within the Oxfordshire countryside. The monitor, projected onto a CinemaScope-sized wraparound display screen, was a mirage, a part of a classy coaching simulator. (F1 guidelines prohibit driving the true automobiles between races.) Mr. Sargeant climbs out of a duplicate driver’s seat carrying athletic pants. He received’t want a fireproof go well with till later.

In three weeks’ time, Mr. Sargeant will do that for actual: wind whipping his visor, G-forces of as much as six instances his physique weight urgent on his neck, the ever-present risk of a catastrophic crash as he’s watched by roughly 70 million folks all over the world. For now, it’s time for lunch. “Is chili bad for you?” he asks, digging right into a bowl at his group’s commissary. “I don’t think it’s that bad.”

Reaching Formula 1, the very best degree of worldwide motor sport, is a giant step for Mr. Sargeant, 22, a South Florida native who started racing rudimentary automobiles generally known as karts at 6 years outdated and this yr joined the Williams Racing group as the primary full-time American F1 driver since 2007.

For Formula 1 itself, discovering a hometown hero for American followers is a big leap.

Although it’s enormously in style in Europe, F1 struggled for many years to interrupt into the United States. That started to alter in 2016, when the game was bought for $4.4 billion by the Colorado-based Liberty Media, owned by the cable magnate John Malone. Liberty ramped up its social media — F1 had barely stored a YouTube web page — and backed a preferred Netflix documentary collection, “Drive to Survive.” Once geared towards growing old white males, F1 now has a youthful and extra various fan base. American TV viewership is up 220 p.c from 2018, and the game made $2.6 billion in income final yr.

Still, a subset of F1 devotees complain about what they see as an overemphasis on leisure and ginned-up drama. Under Liberty, they argue, pure racing is taking a again seat to low cost tips to reel in informal viewers. And they usually use a grimy phrase for it: Americanization. “It is becoming more and more like Formula Hollywood,” Bernie Ecclestone, the 92-year-old Briton who constructed F1 into a world enterprise, griped final yr. “F1 is being made more and more for the American market.”

The backlash reached a crescendo eventually week’s Miami Grand Prix, which was added in 2022 as a showpiece for American followers. In a prizefight-style pre-race ceremony, the rapper LL Cool J launched the 20 drivers one after the other amid swirling smoke and a squad of cheerleaders. Nearby, Will.i.am carried out a reside orchestra enjoying the rap tune he lately recorded with Lil Wayne as a part of a “global music collaboration” with Formula 1. (The lyrics rhyme “Max Verstappen,” the title of the game’s high driver, with “your champion.”)

“Pandering to the American audience is killing @F1,” wrote one fan on Twitter, echoing criticism that bubbled up throughout quite a few F1 web sites. Even the racers complained: “None of the drivers like it,” groused Lando Norris, a Briton who drives for McLaren. Undeterred, Liberty introduced that the bombastic pre-race sequence can be featured at a number of extra grands prix this yr.

In the United States, F1 has lengthy been related to a sure European mystique. Its drivers race throughout the Ardennes forest (Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium), the plains of Lombardy (Italy’s Autodromo Nazionale di Monza) and, most famously, the louche glamour of the Monaco Grand Prix. The sport’s stateside picture may very well be summed up by the 2006 comedy, “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” which featured Sacha Baron Cohen as a pretentious French F1 driver named Jean Girard, a snooty Eurotrash foil to Will Ferrell’s macho NASCAR cowboy.

In 2023, F1 can really feel a bit extra Ricky Bobby than Jean Girard. In Miami, drivers circled a monitor constructed within the car parking zone of the Dolphins soccer stadium, previous a synthetic Monaco-style “harbor”: blue-painted asphalt topped with ersatz yachts. A brand new Las Vegas race in November can have automobiles zooming down the Strip previous Caesars Palace. Meanwhile, conventional races in France and Germany are gone.

Katy Fairman, a journalist primarily based in Brighton, England, who runs the F1 podcast “Small Torque,” mentioned she was stunned by the spectacle when she attended a race in Austin, Texas. “There were girls with pompoms,” she mentioned. “I remember watching it and thinking, Oh my gosh, this is so different from anything I’d seen F1 do in a long time.”

Ms. Fairman conceded that some Europeans discover the American hullabaloo “tacky.” But she added: “When it’s something to do with America, I think Europeans are quite judgmental. I think it’s just a bit of lighthearted fun. You guys like to have a party.”

The arrival of Mr. Sargeant, who grew up about an hour’s drive from the Miami racetrack, has spurred new curiosity, together with a profile and photograph shoot in GQ, and he’s comfortable to play the half. “What’s up America, let’s bring that energy!” he shouted to the cameras after LL Cool J launched him as “the local boy done good.”

But as with F1, there are rising pains. In Miami, Mr. Sargeant completed final, his race ruined on the primary lap when he broken a entrance wing. After the checkered flag, he apologized to his group, his voice barely a whisper: “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe it.”

Weeks earlier, in an interview in England, Mr. Sargeant had demurred in regards to the strain of carrying the celebrities and stripes. “I try not to get too caught up in the talk of the role of ‘first American,’” he mentioned. “It’s still very early for me, and I have a lot to learn still.”

If Mr. Sargeant doesn’t carry out, there are dozens of drivers desperate to take his spot. “At the moment,” he mentioned, “I just have to worry about staying here.”

‘I just want to get back in the gym.’

Before his robust Miami weekend, Mr. Sargeant was requested how he would have fun a high 10 end. “Honestly, it might sound lame, but probably just go back to my house and get in my bed for another night before I go back to London,” he replied. “That’s all I want to do.”

For a rich, good-looking, globe-trotting athlete, Mr. Sargeant could be soft-spoken and endearingly self-conscious. It’s common for somebody who, like a tennis prodigy or Olympian gymnast, has devoted their life since childhood to a sole pursuit.

Mr. Sargeant was 6 when he and his brother Dalton obtained a kart from their dad and mom for Christmas. “No one in the family was really even that much into racing,” Logan mentioned. “We just picked it up as a hobby, something to do on the weekend.” He started successful junior races across the nation — too simply. To attain the subsequent degree and pursue Formula 1, he’d have to go away behind his associates and beloved fishing excursions for all times on a special continent: “We just needed a higher level of competition, and at the end of the day, that was in Europe.”

Mr. Sargeant left Florida earlier than his thirteenth birthday, bouncing between Italy, Switzerland and Britain as he raced on the European junior circuit; in 2015, he turned the primary American to win the Karting World Championship since 1978. “As a kid, it was tough,” he recalled. “Coming from Florida, being outdoors all the time on the water, great weather — it was literally vice versa.” He ultimately settled in London, the place he spends most days understanding with a coach. “I get away from a race weekend, and I just want to get back in the gym,” he mentioned. “I hate that feeling of leaving slack on the table.”

It is extremely troublesome to nab a seat in Formula 1. Today’s drivers are bodily dynamos educated to optimize their reflexes and efficiency ranges all the way down to how nicely they’ll stand up to jet lag — important in a sport that this yr will embody 23 grands prix unfold over 5 continents. F1 groups make use of a whole bunch of staff and spend a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} creating the world’s most refined racecars. But it’s finally as much as the driving force to execute.

It additionally helps to have cash. Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time world champion and F1’s solely Black driver, is an exception, having grown up on a London council property. Many F1 rivals are the sons of multimillionaires (and a few billionaires) who can bankroll dear journey and high-tech automobiles.

Mr. Sargeant falls into the scion class. He hails from a rich Florida asphalt delivery household. His uncle, Harry Sargeant III, is a former fighter pilot and onetime finance chair of Florida’s Republican Party who has been sued by the brother-in-law of King Abdullah II of Jordan and whose title turned up, tangentially, within the 2020 impeachment of former President Donald J. Trump. (Harry was not accused of any wrongdoing.)

Logan’s father, Daniel Sargeant, labored alongside Harry till the brothers had a falling out. In a 2013 lawsuit, Harry accused Daniel of misdirecting $6.5 million in company funds “for the purpose of advancing the international cart racing activities” of his sons, Logan and Dalton; that litigation was ultimately settled.

In 2019, Daniel Sargeant pleaded responsible in federal courtroom in New York to international bribery and cash laundering expenses associated to his enterprise dealings overseas. He is free on a $5 million bond and is awaiting sentencing. A Williams spokesman mentioned that Logan Sargeant was not “in a position to comment” on any of the authorized issues involving his household.

In F1, none of this notably stands out. The mom of Mr. Sargeant’s Williams teammate, Alexander Albon, was jailed in Britain for swindling hundreds of thousands of kilos in fraudulent gross sales of high-end automobiles. A Russian racer, Nikita Mazepin, was booted from the game after his oligarch father, an in depth ally of President Vladimir V. Putin, was sanctioned following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

James Vowles, the Williams group principal, mentioned in an interview that he employed Mr. Sargeant for his pace, not his U.S. passport. “I’m incredibly pleased that the sport is growing in America, but I think it would be anything but disingenuous to say that Logan’s here for any other reason than I think he’s got this pure talent,” he mentioned.

In his F1 debut in Bahrain in March, Mr. Sargeant completed twelfth, outpacing this yr’s two different rookies. “He has this insatiable desire to be better, to want more,” Mr. Vowles mentioned. “He’s a perfectionist, and I like that in him.”

Tooting round in a Vauxhall Astra

Britain, the place Formula 1 originated in 1950, stays the game’s non secular dwelling, the place most of its 10 groups are primarily based. Williams was based in Oxfordshire within the Nineteen Seventies, nevertheless it’s now an American subsidiary: a Manhattan personal fairness agency, Dorilton Capital, purchased the corporate in 2020 for an estimated $200 million.

It was an vital money infusion for a group that had struggled to maintain up with rivals. Manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz pour monumental assets into their F1 groups, which double as an elaborate world advertising and marketing marketing campaign and an in-house innovation farm; tech developed for F1, like engines that recycle braking vitality as an accelerant, can trickle into shopper autos.

The Williams campus is a humdrum brick pile that may very well be mistaken for an workplace park — a far cry from McLaren’s space-age advanced an hour’s drive away. Many F1 groups present their drivers with a high-end sports activities automotive for private use; Mr. Sargeant commutes in a Vauxhall Astra, a compact.

Even the group’s sponsors are comparatively down-market; whereas the official watch of Ferrari is Richard Mille (beginning value: $60,000), Williams has a take care of Bremont, whose timepieces retail for considerably much less. (On a latest go to, a Williams press aide was fast to extract a spare Bremont watch from his pocket and guarantee Mr. Sargeant was carrying it at any time when a photographer hovered.)

Given the massive prices, company partnerships are essential to F1, a part of the explanation the American market, with its abundance of prosperous shoppers and rich manufacturers, has proved so tempting. Gerald Donaldson, a journalist who has coated F1 for 45 years, recalled how automobiles have been steadily taken over by company logos beginning within the late Sixties.

“Marlboro paid all the Ferrari bills, including the drivers, for many years,” he mentioned in an interview. “There are eager companies who want the publicity.” Mr. Sargeant’s automotive options advertisements for Michelob Ultra beer and an American monetary agency, Stephens. In Miami final weekend, beachgoers noticed an airborne banner studying “Go Logan!” alongside the picture of a Duracell battery.

Last yr, the Miami race was considered on ABC by 2.6 million folks, the largest American viewers for a reside F1 telecast. Ratings for this yr’s race fell about 25 p.c, maybe a results of a duller-than-usual season dominated by one group, Red Bull.

Still, viewing information present that F1 is increasing past prosperous cities related to elite sports activities: In 2022, its high 5 American TV markets included Asheville, N.C., and Tulsa, Okla. ESPN is clearly betting on extra development. When the sports activities community renewed its broadcast rights final yr, it agreed to pay $90 million yearly — up from the $5 million-a-year deal it signed in 2019.

Liam Parker, a former adviser to Boris Johnson who now leads communications at F1, mentioned the game was intent on rectifying previous errors. “We were too arrogant,” he mentioned. “We couldn’t understand why the American fan base wasn’t falling in love with us.” But he additionally pushed again on the complaints that Liberty’s efforts to boost the leisure issue had stripped F1 of one thing important.

“This whole argument of ‘Americanization,’ it’s a very crude way to describe things,” he mentioned. “We shouldn’t ignore things that can improve things for new and core fans. It’s about giving people more choices in the modern era. It’s modernization of access to everyone.”

Mr. Hamilton, arguably the largest movie star of the present F1 lineup, has provided his personal endorsement of Liberty’s strategy. “I mean jeez, I grew up listening to LL Cool J,” he informed reporters in Miami. “I thought it was cool, wasn’t an issue to me.”

For all of the debates over elitism, good style and company rap collaborations, the core attraction of F1, if you get proper all the way down to it, could also be one thing easier — one thing Mr. Sargeant obtained at when requested within the interview if he had cherished automobiles as a child.

“I absolutely love driving, as you can imagine,” he mentioned. “But to be honest, I’m not one of those people who studies cars and, you know, likes to know every detail of every single car. It doesn’t really interest me.”

“The part that interests me,” he concluded, “is driving them as fast as I can go.”

Eliza Shapiro contributed reporting from Miami. Kitty Bennett contributed analysis.