American Logan Sargeant finishes best among F1’s rookies in Bahrain, putting his Williams P12

America’s long absence from Formula One ended on Sunday when Williams Racing’s Logan Sargeant bested his fellow rookie drivers.

After an excellent start in which the Fort Lauderdale native jumped three places alongside Williams teammate Alex Albon, Sargeant put in a strong early stint on the soft compound tires before boxing for the hards to finish P1.

Sargeant’s appearance on the grid marked the end of a dry spell for the United States on the Formula One grid.

He became the first American to participate in a race since Alexander Rossi lined up in Brazil for Marussia in 2015.

Sargeant moved up to ninth as other cars around him searched for new tyres, but fell back as the Williams continued to underperform the rest of the field.

Compared to his fellow contemporaries, Sargeant stood out among the other two drivers making their full-time F1 debuts.

McLaren driver and Sargeant’s old rival Oscar Piastri withdrew from the race when team chief executive Zak Brown reported he was suffering from electrical problems.

Sargeant finished one place higher than the other rookie on the grid: Alpha Tauri driver Nyck de Vries.

After fighting through the softs under a virtual safety car for Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, Sargeant came out of the pits with 15 laps to go in P14, three places behind De Vries.

Within three laps Sargeant’s new softs caught up with de Vreis’s old hards and he made the pass easy.

By lap 48, he had finished a protracted battle with Alfa Romeo driver Zhou Guanyu to move up to P12.

As the race ended, he put some distance between his FW45 and Zhou’s C43, but was unable to close the gap that Alpha Tauri driver Yuki Tsunoda had built.

Albon finished the race in P10, just two places ahead of Sargeant but in the points.