The only American on the Formula 1 grid and the first to earn a full-time seat since Scott Speed with Toro Rosso in 2007, rookie Logan Sargeant has made steady improvements with Williams in the past few races.

Still, Sargeant is the only driver to start all 14 races and not score a point. 

But he came close at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, where he could have finished in 10th if not for making contact with the eventual 10th-placed finisher, Valtteri Bottas of Alfa Romeo.

Due to the contact, Sargeant was given a five-second penalty which dropped him into 13th.

He finished 11th at the British Grand Prix after starting the race in 14th, overtaking Nico Hulkenberg and Lance Stroll plus benefitting from Pierre Gasly not finishing the race. 

Sargeant showed his potential in qualifying at the Netherlands Grand Prix.

He started in 10th on the grid after outqualifying Lewis Hamilton and reaching the third qualifying session for the first time. He crashed out of the race after 14 laps, leaving him unable to finish and take advantage of his qualifying performance.

His main issue recently has been his inability to put together quality performances on both Saturday and Sunday of a race weekend.

Williams teammate Alex Albon's strong performances show that Sargeant has room for improvement: Albon finished eighth in the Netherlands and seventh in Italy.

Slightly earlier in the season, Albon finished seventh in Canada and eighth in Great Britain.

Strong results have Albon sitting in 13th in the Driver Standings, while Sargeant languishes in 19th. Albon has scored all 21 of Williams' points to put the English team in seventh in the Constructors Standings, ahead of Haas, Alfa Romeo, and AlphaTauri.

The 22-year-old Sargeant can take solace in the fact that his teammate is five years older and has raced in F1 since 2019. But the American rookie needs to pick up a few points before the season ends to give Williams Racing more reasons to keep him for next year - aside from his nationality that brings more eyeballs as F1 grows stateside.

Sargent is tied for the longest odds to win the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday, September 17, at +50000, level with Albon, Bottas, Hulkenberg, Guanyu Zhou, Kevin Magnussen, Liam Lawson, and Yuki Tsunoda.

Rusty Gorelick

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