Former Formula One driver Logan Sargeant will get his first NTT INDYCAR SERIES experience by testing for Meyer Shank Racing on Nov. 19 at The Thermal Club.
Sargeant, 23, will drive an MSR Honda around the 17-turn, 3.067-mile road course in Thermal, California.
“I’ve known him and his family for a while,” team co-owner Michael Shank said.
Shank became aware of Sargeant and his family through Oswaldo Negri, who drove sports cars for MSR from 2014-17 and is friends with the family.
“Logan’s manager is also (F1 driver) George Russell’s manager, and I got to know him through Oswaldo really well, too,” Shank said. “He’s always stayed in touch just to keep an eye out and keep watching.”
Sargeant, who made 37 F1 starts, became available in August when he was let go from Williams Racing and replaced by Franco Colapinto.
“I think when it all came down and his deal went away at Williams, I thought, ‘Well, this guy is a Super License holder and did really well enough, let’s just see where this puts us,” Shank said. “Any time, in my opinion, you can test a person with a Super License, you need to do it.”
Formula One drivers must hold a valid FIA Super License to compete in that series. Drivers must meet a strict group of requirements to obtain a license.
Even though he doesn’t have room for Sargeant in 2025 with Felix Rosenqvist and Marcus Armstrong racing the pair of MSR Honda-powered entries next season, testing a driver with a Super License is attractive.
Shank did the same for Nyck de Vries in December 2021, offering him a test in one of his cars at Sebring International Raceway without an opportunity for the 2022 season.
The method is like a stick-and-ball sports combine leading into a draft. Even though a particular sports team may not need a player at a specific position, the team still evaluates that player like they would in case they have to face them as an opposing team later or if a situation in the future arises for a spot down the road.
Information is valuable.
“We tested Nyck de Vries a few years ago for the same reason,” Shank said. “Now I know what Nyck is. Even though he and I haven’t been able to put anything together, we tried a couple of different times, but it’s just that fundamental knowledge that here’s another potential A-plus talent.
“In this case, I don’t have anything for him (Sargeant) for 2025, but I always have it in the back of my head if we got into a trouble spot and we wanted to try someone, we have a person that we can go to immediately. I think it’s just a rare opportunity to get to test someone who I think has some potential.
“You never know.”
The potential will be shown early in the test. The team will see right away how Sargeant approaches and handles the test, how he can handle the car without power steering compared to having that function in F1.
“It seems simplistic to be able to say that because we'll get a snapshot of 60, 70% of the ability just in one test,” Shank said. “Hopefully it's dry, but we will see a lot immediately.
“Technically we should take him to an oval, too, to see how he does. And maybe we will at some point. But we'll get a big chunk of that, whether we know this guy can do it or not quickly.”
The other caveat is MSR will provide a car for Sargeant at a track where it had a strong outing in The Thermal Club $1 Million Challenge on March 24 with Rosenqvist. The Swedish driver qualified second for the exhibition race, won one of the two heat races and finished third.
The only team better was Chip Ganassi Racing.
Alex Palou dominated the weekend in his No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, earning NTT P1 Award honors, leading every lap in his Heat Race and all 20 laps in the main event.
MSR entered an alliance with Chip Ganassi Racing for the 2025 season, and this test isn’t just an evaluation test for Sargeant but will be the second test for MSR with technical support from Ganassi.
The first opportunity is on Oct. 11 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for an oval test with four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves behind the wheel.
CGR, whose drivers have won four of the last five NTT INDYCAR SERIES championships, will provide dampers, chassis setups and engineering personnel.
“Next year, Thermal Club is a points-paying race,” Shank said. “Any time we can go to a track that we have a points-paying race we want to do that. Also, we have a technical agreement with Ganassi, who were even a little bit stronger than us there last year. So, this will give us a really good window into where each of us were and let us look at a track with a different driver.
“We get two runs at working with our new technical partner, which is really important before the holidays. It’s so important to figure out what we need to do better.
“I’m talking about the technical inner workings between the two teams. Everything from networking the (pit) stands to communication behind the stand to everything. It’s got to start somewhere, so this is a great place for that.”