Logan Sargeant to Test for Meyer Shank Racing

Logan Sargeant is set for his first #INDYCAR test later this fall with @MeyerShankRac 👀

(📷: Williams Racing) pic.twitter.com/ATyOinMPDG

— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) September 23, 2024

Logan Sargeant will test for Meyer Shank Racing this fall at Thermal Club. Despite this being a predominantly NASCAR-focused publication, I find the move interesting. Sargeant's move to Williams in Formula 1 was much hailed as potentially opening new doors for the series in America. After two unsuccessful years, it looks like the 23-year-old is coming home. What should we expect?

In F1, Sargeant's numbers look like this:

Season	Age	Starts	ASP	eARP	AFP	PFAE	Succ%
2023	22	20	17.20	16.32	15.80	-1.659	35.0
2024	23	14	17.79	17.52	17.14	-2.633	21.4

I excluded the wins column because, as you may infer from the figures, he has zero.

My initial inclination is that a driver moving from the pinnacle of world racing to a domestic series might be in for a bump. Turns out, that may be unlikely.

Like Sargeant, Romain Grosjean was at a backmarker team (Haas) before moving to IndyCar in 2021. Here's how he's done before and after:

Season	Age	Series	Starts	ASP	eARP	AFP	PFAE	Succ%
2016	29	F1	21	13.76	13.42	13.86	-0.594	47.6
2017	30	F1	20	13.20	12.08	12.25	0.452	65.0
2018	31	F1	21	10.14	11.17	12.67	-1.866	38.1
2019	32	F1	21	11.62	12.96	15.14	-3.172	19.0
2020	33	F1	15	16.67	15.74	15.27	-1.357	26.7
2021	34	IndyCar	13	9.31	11.42	12.69	-1.409	53.8
2022	35	IndyCar	17	10.47	11.98	13.71	-1.460	52.9
2023	36	IndyCar	16	9.88	12.06	15.44	-3.483	31.3
2024	37	IndyCar	17	12.82	13.73	15.71	-2.262	52.9

He hasn't seen much of a bump. He starts in a decent spot, runs worse, and finishes worse again. According to success rate, he does about as well as you could expect for his starting position according to success rate — which is how he was doing in F1 for his career:

Series	Starts	ASP	eARP	AFP	PFAE	Succ%
F1	181	11.89	11.88	13.17	-1.23	44.19
IndyCar	63	10.71	12.36	14.48	-2.18	47.60

The numbers are not better! One could argue they're worse.

Marcus Ericsson also made the transition. His career is the upside case:

Series	Starts	ASP	eARP	AFP	PFAE	Succ%
F1	97	16.84	15.64	14.96	-0.42	45.36
IndyCar	96	12.50	10.97	11.25	1.55	70.83

However, it didn't start easy:

Season	Age	Series	Starts	ASP	eARP	AFP	PFAE	Succ%
2016	25	F1	21	18.67	16.84	15.86	-0.63	47.6
2017	26	F1	20	16.80	16.01	15.35	-0.78	40.0
2018	27	F1	21	15.10	13.87	13.19	0.25	52.4
2019	28	IndyCar	16	14.75	13.80	14.81	-1.43	43.8
2020	29	IndyCar	14	13.07	11.57	12.07	0.74	64.3
2021	30	IndyCar	16	12.19	10.04	9.06	3.63	87.5
2022	31	IndyCar	17	11.65	9.04	8.06	4.29	88.2
2023	32	IndyCar	16	10.13	8.83	8.25	3.59	87.5
2024	33	IndyCar	17	13.29	12.61	15.29	-1.62	52.9

His first season was a continuation of his F1 mediocrity. However, once he settled in at Ganassi, he became a monster, at least according to Lap Raptor-favorite stats PFAE and success rate.

Even if Sargeant can follow Ericsson's path, Ericsson also started from a better position than Sargeant. Ericsson bloomed from a slightly negative driver into an all-star. Sargeant is starting in a -2 to -3 PFAE hole. A blossomed Sargeant may be a 0-1 PFAE, 50/50 success rate driver.

Sargeant is young. If he does indeed move to IndyCar next year, he'll be doing so in his age-24 season. The drivers above didn't come over until much later. And so we'll have to wait and see. But keep your expectations tempered.