F1 Miami GP live updates: Starting grid, race time and driver announcements with Pérez on pole today

The Williams rookie is the lone American on the grid and even spent the early years of his childhood in Florida before moving to Europe at 12 years old. It’s widely known that Williams funded Sargeant’s Formula Two career, but during his first season in 2022, they began wondering if he truly needed a second year, sporting director Sven Smeets told The Athletic. They ultimately decided to add him to the 2023 driver line-up alongside Alex Albon, and so far this season, Sargeant has had standout moments — and made rookie mistakes.

“Ups and downs, good days, bad days, to be expected,” Sargeant said when asked to summarize his season to date. “I’m learning every weekend and I feel like it’s coming more and more towards me. But yeah, I have to be more consistently at the top of my game, driving better each and every day.”

Since finishing P12 in the season opener in Bahrain, he’s recorded two P16 finishes and a DNF. As far as qualifying luck (excluding the crash in the Sprint Shootout), he’s only made it into Q2 once, also in Baku. Sargeant set the expectations on the lower side during Thursday’s press conference, pointing out that this is another track he doesn’t know.

Dave Robson, Williams’ head of vehicle performance, said in the team’s recap that Sargeant’s car issues persisted into third practice and changes were made. The American made a mistake during his first timed lap, which put him on the backfoot, but Robson highlighted that he did finish faster than Albon on that lap after a quick recovery. But fine margins resulted in his P20 start for Sunday.

“I had the couple of tenths needed to advance to Q2,” the rookie said in the team recap. “I needed to do it on the first push, but I did it on the second and I felt like the tires were graining towards the second and third sectors of that lap. It was extremely tight out there with fine margins.”

Just 0.252 seconds separated Nyck de Vries in P15 and Sargeant.