PORTLAND, Ore. – Colton Herta receives a buzz on his phone notifying him every time his name is linked to a Formula One seat next season with AlphaTauri.
Speculation was so pervasive that Herta said on Friday that he had stopped reading the reports. He has also informed his father, who acts as his agent, not to inform him of any discussions and leave him alone to complete the final two races of the season. IndyCar.
“There’s nothing I want to say right now. I just want to focus on these two weekends and have some time to decompress and figure out what’s going to happen in the off-season,” Herta told The Associated Press. “I told my dad, he was dealing with all of my management, I told him, ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to deal with it. I just want to finish the season.’
“And then we’ll look at the options and see if I have one.”
The 22-year-old California driver is considered a leading candidate to become the first American driver on the F1 circuit since Alexander Rossi in 2015. Herta has a testing contract with McLaren and in July participated in a two-day test for the team in Portimao, Portugal.
He has nothing else in line at this point, and McLaren is official get the right to F2 champion Oscar Piastri on Friday when F1’s contract review panel ruled the Australian driver was free to leave Alpine. Piastri will be teammates with Lando Norris for McLaren next season, officially closing an option for Herta.
Herta has a year left on his IndyCar contract with Andretti Autosport, but team owner Michael Andretti has said he will not hold his young driver back for a F1 chance. Andretti is trying to build his own F1 team to be built around Herta and last year was close to a deal to buy Alfa Romeo Racing.
When that deal fell apart, Andretti shifted focus to asking F1 to expand its network to two more Andretti Global entries for 22 cars out of 11 teams. F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali said there have been many requests from interested parties wanting to join the grid.
Now there is speculation that both AlphaTauri could be sold, giving Andretti another shot at buying an existing team, and that Herta is in the spotlight for a seat. Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda currently drives for AlphaTauri, but Gasly’s name has been mentioned for many open seats in F1.
Herta, who has seven career IndyCar championships and advanced into the penultimate race of the season on Sunday, a career-low 10th in the series standings, on Friday reiterated that he is racing content in the United States. He also said he would not take a seat in F1 just to become an F1 driver.
“It depends on a lot of things. I want to be happy about where I am, where I am, the team I’m with. I just need to feel comfortable,” Herta told AP. “There are a lot of different factors that determine when you switch teams and I haven’t started to delve into it yet.
“I’m not going there to get there. I need to understand exactly what I’m getting into, which I don’t like right now. So we just have to wait and see what options really exist for that. I.”
Herta initially pursued European racing early in her career and moved to England alone as a teenager. But when the opportunity dried up, he returned to the United States ahead of the 2017 Indy Lights season and won six races in two seasons.
It wasn’t enough to earn him the license points needed to compete in F1. Although it has been reported that the FIA could inspect his work agency and offer Herta an exemption, he said on Friday that he does not know where any of that stands. .
“There’s so much talk and speculation, I get notifications on my phone all day,” Herta said. “Honestly, everyone else knows more than I do at this point.”
Herta declined to speculate on where he might drive in 2023.
“No, no. I mean, I have a contract with Andretti for next year and I don’t have anything else right now,” Herta said. “I think there are some guys in this series that, even if they were offered an F1 seat, they wouldn’t want because they would love to race in IndyCar. No one should be ashamed to be an IndyCar driver. “
