Logan: “It's amazing to be here”

Ahead of his first-ever home Grand Prix, Logan Sargeant was on FIA press conference duty at the Miami International Autodrome on Thursday.

Our young American appeared alongside fellow Formula 1 drivers Esteban Ocon (Alpine), Nyck de Vries (AlphaTauri), Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) and George Russell (Mercedes).

Hear what Sarge had to say before racing cars for the first time in the USA at this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix.

It's good. It was nice to get home after Baku. I was able to spend two days at home to really recharge, and get out on the water which was nice.

And yeah, I'm excited for this weekend. It's nice to be back in my well-known climate, which is extremely hot but it's going to be a tough weekend, not knowing the track.

It's a big hurdle to climb. But yeah, I'm excited.

I've watched endless [Miami Dolphins] games in the [Hard Rock] stadium so to be able to race around it, to have the hospitalities set up inside the stadium is pretty cool.

I was just here at Christmas watching a game. And now here we are and it’s my first home Grand Prix, it's pretty cool.

Ups and downs, good days, bad days, to be expected. I'm learning every weekend and I feel like it's coming more and more towards me.

I have to be more consistently at the top of my game, driving better each and every day. And I’m definitely not satisfied. A lot of work to do, a lot to improve on but it's moving in the right direction. And that's all that matters.

Well, I think considering not knowing the track, it's going to be a tough weekend for me. But back to a normal format which is nice, to get three hours to build up to it.

I think it's going to be a pretty tight midfield so we need to be comfortable going into qualifying and just deliver and get the job done.

I started racing 10 minutes down the road at Homestead–Miami Speedway. It was really just at the time, something to do with my dad, my brother.

Obviously, we were competitive kids and we just loved the sport, we loved the adrenaline and that just took us on a long journey and here we are, done the full circle back, in Miami for my first home F1 race. I’m looking forward to it.

It's amazing to be here. I probably had about 1000 ticket requests at this point, well not that many, but maybe 100. But, I don't have tickets as easy as everyone thinks.

It's nice to be here. It's going to be nice to actually take part in my first-ever car race in America - that'll be pretty cool. And just to see the American fans, all friends and family here and I know the atmosphere is always good in America.

The American fans put out some. I'm excited to have that home atmosphere for the first time and really just enjoy every part of the weekend.

I remember when I first moved to Europe, I don't think there was a single US Grand Prix and I'm definitely glad there are three now. That's pretty nice.

Points are definitely what we're after. It's going to be challenging, for sure. But I think that starts with delivering a better qualifying and going from there.

Opportunities are always there to score points and we have to try and just work well together as a team and extract the most from it.

Honestly, it might sound lame, but [if I score points] probably just go back to my house and get in my bed for another night before I go back to London. That's all I want to do.