Jonas Leo
Colton Herta, scion of IndyCar racer and team owner Bryan Herta, was destined for a career in motorsport from an early age. His formative years in racing saw him quickly set his sights on the competitive European single-seater ladder. At just 15, Herta made his debut in the MSA Formula championship, now recognized as British F4. In a competitive field, he secured third place overall, finishing behind a rising star, Lando Norris, who clinched his first of many junior titles that season. The pair notably shared the podium on seven occasions, showcasing their burgeoning talents before their career trajectories diverged.
Herta continued his progression in 2016, moving up to the F3-level Euroformula Open series. He once again demonstrated his potential, securing third in the standings, trailing only the more experienced Leonardo Pulcini and Ferdinand Habsburg. Despite his strong performances in Europe, Herta’s ambitions at the time did not explicitly point towards Formula 1. In a December 2016 interview with Motorsport, Herta expressed a candid disinterest in F1, stating, "Actually, my goal isn’t Formula 1. I never really had that interest — especially these past seven years when one team has dominated." This sentiment was articulated during a period of peak dominance for Mercedes, following a similar era of Red Bull supremacy, which Herta felt diminished the competitive appeal of the sport.
He elaborated on his reservations about F1’s competitive landscape: "It seems that if you get the wrong drive, you’re basically stuck forever in the middle of the pack, fighting hard just to get a point or two, and never being noticed by the big teams. It just bores me. No matter how good a driver you are, if the guy ahead is in a better car, he can pull away by 20 seconds before his first pitstop."
Herta clarified his rationale for racing in Europe, emphasizing the developmental advantages. "It’s better for learning, because the fields are bigger and deeper," he explained. "I learned more from my first year in Europe than I did in my first year racing in America. I was 14 when I moved over there, and it matured me greatly, faster than I would have done here. So I think it was the right choice to take, and I’m excited by what could come next."
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Upon returning to North America, Herta quickly found success in the Road to Indy ladder. He was named Indy Lights Rookie of the Year in 2017 and was a strong title contender in 2018, ultimately finishing runner-up to debutant Pato O’Ward. His impressive performances earned him a swift graduation to the NTT IndyCar Series. In just his third start in the premier American open-wheel championship, Herta triumphed at the Circuit of The Americas in 2019, making history as the series’ youngest-ever winner at 18 years, 11 months, and 25 days old.
Over the subsequent years, primarily with Andretti Autosport, Herta solidified his reputation as a frontrunner. He amassed nine victories across 117 IndyCar starts, achieving a career-best third-place finish in the 2020 championship and consistently demonstrating race-winning pace. Motorsport’s 2019 season review aptly described him as a "bona fide superstar," a moniker he largely lived up to, despite a couple of error-prone campaigns in 2022 and 2023.
The lure of Formula 1, despite his earlier reservations, began to surface on multiple occasions. In 2021, Herta participated in simulator tests for Sauber as part of Andretti Global’s unsuccessful bid to acquire the Swiss outfit. The following year, in July 2022, he undertook a two-day test with McLaren in Portugal, driving the team’s MCL35M at Portimão, his first experience in modern F1 machinery. Simultaneously, Red Bull Racing identified Herta as a potential replacement for Pierre Gasly at its sister team AlphaTauri, with Gasly set to move to Alpine. However, Herta’s F1 aspirations were hampered by the FIA’s superlicence regulations. Despite his strong IndyCar results, he possessed only 32 of the required 40 superlicence points to compete in the world championship. This shortfall led Red Bull to abandon their pursuit of Herta, ultimately signing Nyck de Vries for AlphaTauri instead.
At 22, Herta’s F1 hopes appeared to dim considerably. However, a new opportunity emerged with the resurgence of Andretti’s Formula 1 entry under the Cadillac identity. With the significant backing of General Motors and its commitment to an upcoming engine program, the project gained momentum, overcoming initial reluctance from Formula One Management regarding the value a new team might bring to the championship.
A prominent question surrounding the new American F1 team was the inclusion of an American driver. While F2 frontrunner Jak Crawford was also considered, Cadillac ultimately opted for a highly experienced initial driver lineup for their 2026 debut, signing veterans Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas. This decision prioritized race-winning experience, crucial for a start-up squad. Former Sauber driver Zhou Guanyu was appointed as the reserve driver. Herta, soon to be 26, was brought on as a test driver, embarking on an unprecedented move from IndyCar to the F1 feeder series, Formula 2, with Hitech Grand Prix. This radical switch aims to allow him to accumulate the remaining superlicence points needed for an F1 seat. With 34 points currently, Herta requires just six more, which can be earned by finishing in the top eight of the F2 championship, or by participating in F1 free practice sessions (one point per FP1, up to 10 points over three years).
Cadillac F1 team CEO Dan Towriss articulated the team’s expectations for Herta’s F2 campaign in September, stating, "He’s got to earn it, right?" Towriss expects Herta to achieve a top-10 finish in the F2 championship. Herta will race with Hitech, a British team that has enjoyed recent success in F2, collecting 21 podium finishes over the past two seasons with drivers like Paul Aron, Luke Browning, and Dino Beganovic.
When asked about his confidence in achieving a top-10 finish and his broader aspirations, Herta made it clear he intends to compete for victories. "Everything that I hop into, I want to be competitive and I want to be strong," he asserted. "If the goal isn’t to win, then I don’t really see why you’d do it — so that’s my mindset. Either how unrealistic it is or how realistic it is, I don’t know. I guess time will have to tell. But everything that I do in motorsport, I try to do 100%. And if you go into the mindset of ‘Oh, well, let’s try to work off and start inside the top 15 and then move forward from there,’ I just don’t think it’s the right approach. For me, I want to be as quick as possible. I want to lead sessions, I want to win races. But I guess time will tell how difficult that is."
Pre-season testing, conducted recently at Barcelona, offered an encouraging initial assessment. Herta finished 12th in the three-day classification, a mere six tenths slower than pacesetter Rafael Camara, the reigning F3 champion, and only three tenths off second place. Herta described the transition from IndyCar to F2 as a "180-degree shift." "This car is extremely different to everything that I’ve driven previously, so it is a big jump, it is a big difference," he insisted. "There’s a lot of stuff to get used to. It’s getting better, but from my side, I just don’t think it’s completely fluid yet. It’s still going to take more time to get completely used to it and be like, ‘Okay, this is what I need to do, this is where I need to brake,’ and know all these things pretty precisely before I get in the fight. I’m just not there yet. But it’s getting fluid."
Herta’s career pivot is largely unprecedented in modern motorsport. Rarely does an established IndyCar frontrunner transition to F1’s feeder series. While some former F1 drivers have returned to F2 (e.g., Gianmaria Bruni, Timo Glock, Romain Grosjean, Giorgio Pantano), these instances occurred two decades ago, and those drivers were not as established in a major professional series as Herta.
A relevant parallel can be drawn with Herta’s new Hitech teammate, Ritomo Miyata. Three years ago, Miyata achieved the highest honors in Japanese motorsport, securing both the Super Formula and Super GT titles, demonstrating his versatility across single-seaters and sportscars. Then aged 24, Miyata was considered a prime candidate to join Toyota’s WEC lineup. However, he left Japan to pursue a dual F2/ELMS campaign alongside his WEC reserve role. While he achieved two victories in ELMS, his F2 struggle was pronounced, finishing 19th in the championship with Rodin in his first season and a slightly improved 17th with ART last season, with only one podium finish in 55 F2 races to date. Miyata is giving F2 another attempt this year with Hitech, seeking to improve his F1 prospects.
A primary challenge for both Miyata and Herta lies in adapting to Pirelli’s high-degradation F2 tires. Unlike the Yokohama and Firestone tires used in Super Formula and IndyCar, which typically allow drivers to push flat out, Pirelli’s compounds demand intricate management during both qualifying and races. This crucial aspect of racecraft, often mastered in F3, is a steep learning curve for drivers accustomed to different tire philosophies, particularly with only a single 45-minute practice session before qualifying.
Herta acknowledges that his extensive IndyCar experience, while valuable for overall racecraft, may not directly translate to an advantage in F2. "I don’t think it’s as much of an advantage as people might think," he commented. "At this stage, whether you’re 18 or 25, you’re pretty much fully developed there. And there are some small things that you learn along the way, but as far as outright pace, you’re pretty much close to what your maximum will be. But it’s nice to have that experience. There’s a lot of things that are different, but there are also some similarities. So experience is key, and mistakes and whatnot are going to happen in racing, and you need to make sure to learn from them. And I’ve done a lot of mistakes in my career behind the wheel, so there’s a lot of lessons that I’ve learned — maybe more so than most of the people in this championship. But if that’s going to help me a lot, I don’t know. If it’s only going to help me one percent, I’ll take it."
In this regard, having Miyata as a teammate is expected to be invaluable. "What’s very helpful is having Ritomo as a team-mate also — a lot of F2 experience, and I think it’s going to be very helpful for me this year," Herta stated. "Ritomo has a good, refined style of F2 driving, which has been important for me in my development because it is quite a different style of driving to most of the other formulas. So it’s been a big help so far, it’ll be a big help through the season — for lack of track running that you get in Formula 2 to get up to pace quickly — to have somebody that has that experience. This could be very helpful."
The success of Herta’s F2 season remains to be seen. The current F2 field, while competitive, is arguably less top-heavy than in previous years, with sophomores like Alex Dunne and Dino Beganovic (both from the Ferrari academy, like Charles Leclerc who famously won F3 and F2 back-to-back as a rookie) considered among the title contenders, alongside Camara. Herta’s F2 performance, however, is only one component of Cadillac’s comprehensive evaluation.
Cadillac CEO Dan Towriss confirmed that Herta’s overall contribution will be assessed beyond just F2 results. "He’ll be spending time on the F1 sim," Towriss explained. "So it’s not just what happens in F2. There’ll be FP1s that he’ll be involved with as well as sim work. And so we’ll look at the total body of work to judge his readiness for Formula 1." Herta himself acknowledges the critical role of these F1 test opportunities: "FP1 is probably going to be the most important thing to get me ready for Formula 1. I don’t know exactly when those FP1s are going to come. It’s pretty far down on the priority list at the moment, but it’s been exciting. It’s very exciting to see them testing. I’ve been talking to a lot of people, they’re very happy with how it’s going. I can say they’ve seen some bumps along the way, but they’re very excited about the progress that they’re doing."
Ultimately, Colton Herta’s potential graduation to Formula 1 in 2027 or beyond may partially rest outside his direct control. His F2 performance and F1 test contributions will be crucial, but the dynamics of Cadillac’s established driver lineup could also play a significant role. For Herta to secure a full-time F1 seat, he might need one of the veteran drivers, Perez or Bottas, to underperform relative to their teammate. The decision to replace an experienced driver with a rookie becomes considerably simpler when there’s a clear performance deficit. If both 36-year-old veterans perform at a similar, high level, the bar for Herta to make the cut will undoubtedly be elevated. As Herta wisely concluded, only time will truly tell if his unconventional path leads to Formula 1.
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Author Profile
- Jonas Leo is a passionate motorsport journalist and lifelong Formula 1 enthusiast. With a sharp eye for race strategy and driver performance, he brings readers closer to the world of Grand Prix racing through in-depth analysis, breaking news, and exclusive paddock insights. Jonas has covered everything from preseason testing to dramatic title deciders, capturing the emotion and precision that define modern F1. When he’s not tracking lap times or pit stop tactics, he enjoys exploring classic racing archives and writing about the evolution of F1 technology.
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