PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — It’s full speed ahead for Colton Herta as the Andretti Autosport driver prepares for his fifth season in the NTT IndyCar Series.
But there is little doubt the son of former driver Bryan Herta has his eyes set on a career in Formula One someday. If team owner Michael Andretti is successful in his bid to acquire a Formula One team that would feature Cadillac as his partner, Herta would be one of the two drivers.
In 2021, Andretti was attempting to purchase the Sauber Formula One team, which would have featured Herta as the driver. That unraveled when Sauber refused to give up control of the team, despite Andretti meeting the purchase price of $600 million. In 2022, Herta continued to be the focus of interest in Formula One and completed an F1 test for McLaren at Portiamo, Portugal, last summer.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown was very impressed with Herta’s adaptation to the F1 machine. Herta, however, met with resistance from the FIA by not having enough points of a Super License.
Andretti may have moved one step closer in his F1 bid by announcing General Motors and the Cadillac brand as his partner in the early days of January. That also came with resistance from F1 team principals. Meantime, Herta has stayed calm and quiet, blocking out the noise.
“It’s very easy to just not pay attention to it,” Herta told SPEED SPORT. “I don’t know how I do it or don’t do it, but I just don’t put much effort into thinking about it. I’ve never let it get to me. It’s never been a problem.”
Herta is more interested in leading Andretti Autosport on a rebound season in the NTT IndyCar Series.
Last year was a miserable season at Andretti Autosport, compared to its past glory. Former IndyCar champion and 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay had departed and was replaced by Romain Grosjean.
Alexander Rossi finally won a race for the first time since 2019, but was set to leave the team at the end of the season for Arrow McLaren.
First-year driver Devlin DeFrancesco made some rookie mistakes.
Herta won an exciting GMR Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway but had just one more podium finish the rest of the season. He finished 10th in the final NTT IndyCar Series standings. The driver from Santa Clarita, Calif., is only 22, but knows that he must have a better season in 2023.
“It’s very important,” Herta said. “it’s no secret that last year was not a good one for us. We need to do better on all fronts. That’s what the main part of the off-season has been. It’s been looking at everything and just trying to improve everything. We just need mistake-free weekends, and that’s the goal, one by one.
“We just can’t make mistakes.”
Ironically, at 22, Herta is the team leader at Andretti Autosport in terms of tenure. Grosjean is 36 as he begins his second season at Andretti. DeFrancesco is also beginning his second season and Kyle Kirkwood begins his first season at Andretti and his second in IndyCar.
When asked his role as team leader, Herta quipped, “The other drivers are all older than me.”
DeFrancesco is 23 and Kirkwood is 24.
“It’s not much of a difference for me,” Herta said. “Maybe they’ll rely a little bit more on my feedback and I might have to do a little bit more, but for me, it’s kind of business as usual.”
When Herta became the youngest winner in IndyCar history with his big win at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in 2019, Andretti Autosport was a veteran-led team featuring Hunter-Reay, Rossi, and Marco Andretti. Young Herta also grew up around the team as his father, Bryan, is one of the team partners and a race strategist.
“Guys like that, the leadership pretty much entails just being smart and really good at setup work,” Herta explained. “That’s a big thing. You go to a place like the 500 and I don’t have a ton of time there. I still have a lot of time, but not as much as a lot of these guys have.
“They know a lot of different tips and tricks and what they’re looking for in the car, where I’m fairly confident that I know what I’m looking for, but yeah, so there’s a little bit of an adjustment period there. That’s probably like the biggest difference is — or the most helpfulness that you could bring would be setup work and your experience through that.”
Herta has many goals left to accomplish in IndyCar as Formula One will have to wait, at least for another year. He wants to return to championship contention after dropping to 10th in the standings. He also wants to dramatically improve his results in the Indianapolis 500.
In four previous Indianapolis 500 starts, Herta has finished 33rd as a rookie in 2019, eighth in 2020 when nobody was there to see it, 16th in 2021 and 30th last year.
“It’s not been a great one, to be honest,” Herta said in an understatement. “I’m not satisfied with how competitive I’ve been during the race, during the 500. We have qualified well there in the past, but for some reason, the race kind of eludes me. It’s really understanding the evolution of the track from the first day all the way up until and through the race and what I need and what I need to stay on top of, that’s the biggest thing for me.”
It was back in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda for Herta on Thursday during the first day of IndyCar’s “Spring Training” Open Test at the Thermal Club in the California desert.
It’s the first time a major racing series has competed on the road course at the private development that features lavish multi-million-dollar homes owned by millionaires that are automotive enthusiasts. Herta is hoping to get his money’s worth out of the test.
“I don’t know much about the place,” Herta said. “I’ve never been here before. It looks like an interesting track. I’ve only seen very little video on it. We’ll have full debriefs and whatnot on the track and what we expect to do for the next upcoming days.
“The biggest thing is just having a place that you can knock the rust off, and I haven’t really seen the runoff and what that looks like, if it’s enough room or not, but hopefully it is because you do tend to drop a wheel here and there, have a spin if you’re getting back in the car for the first time in a few months.”