Meyer Shank Racing will give former Williams Racing Formula 1 driver Logan Sargeant his first NTT IndyCar Series test.
The two-car squad owned by Mike Shank and Jim Meyer has confirmed to RACER that it will make use of their final evaluation test day to run Sargeant at The Thermal Club in Thermal, California, the private facility that transitions into a full championship event next season.
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The 23-year-old American will sample the 17-turn, 3.067-mile road course on November 19 in one of the team’s Honda-powered Dallara DW12s.
Starting in 2023, Sargeant contested 37 F1 races for Williams before being replaced by Argentina’s Franco Colapinto in August, which came after months of speculation the Floridian would not be retained by Williams for 2025.
Anticipating the change of circumstances at the storied grand prix team, Sargeant’s manager contacted an array of IndyCar teams in recent months to inquire about paying opportunities for his client.
Despite the limited number of teams left with the ability to hire drivers at this stage of the year, Sargeant traveled to Nashville Speedway for the September 14-15 season finale to take meeting with multiple teams. The time spent with Meyer and Shank proved beneficial as they were impressed with Sargeant’s character; the offer of a test was presented at Nashville and duly accepted.
The single-day trip to the outskirts of Palm Springs will mark MSR’s road course testing debut for its new technical alliance forged with defending series champions Chip Ganassi Racing, which will provide dampers, chassis setups, and engineering personnel.
The MSR-Ganassi relationship takes its first steps on an oval in October when Helio Castroneves, winner of the 2021 Indianapolis 500, will test, and then moves to Thermal where both sides of the alliance will get an in-depth look at Sargeant’s skills.
Although MSR and Ganassi have no vacancies across their five combined entries for 2025, the test will give Sargeant a chance to showcase his abilities for any teams that have been wanting to see how he fares in an IndyCar.