Is Colton Herta F1 the next American star? IndyCar’s youngest ever race winner looks to the future while enjoying the present
Just call it the Curious Case of Colton Herta.
This weekend marks the third event from the final of the 2022 IndyCar season and the last oval race of the year, on the egg-shaped Global Technology Track outside St. Louis. The real-time storyline on Saturday night will be seven riders just 59 points apart as the championship trophy rolls around, specifically a battle between 40 drivers, as the lead. Spirit fight to stop summer rising Scott Dixonwho is looking for a record seventh title.
But the eyes of Formula one world, as they have all the seasons, will focus on the kid who is almost half the age and is on 135 unsurpassable points, ranked 10th after some mid-season struggles and will most likely be eliminated. eliminated from the title war this weekend. .
None of that is a problem. Not the F1 crowd. Not that the American F1 audience seems to be growing. And certainly not the more important group of American corporations looking to put their logo on an F1 machine driven by an American driver.
Nearly all of the above have anointed Herta to be that chauffeur. Chosen one. The last will bring balance not to the Force, but to the open wheel racing forces.
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“Every driver wants to drive in F1, but my goal as a kid was to be where I am now, in IndyCar, so I also try very hard to stay where I am, right where I am. me,” the 22-year-old explained earlier this summer. “But I’m so proud, and who wouldn’t be?”
He is, after all, the youngest driver to win an IndyCar race, which he did three years ago at the age of 18. Since then, he has won six more races, many on racetracks with a serious Formula One lineage, from the Circuit of the Americas in Austin to Long Beach to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway course.
He’s young. He’s hilariously sneaky. He has racing blood, learned from his father Bryan Herta, a member of the 1990s Champ Car “Rat Pack” with names like Helio CastronevesDario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan. He plays drums in a rock band. He even has a great haircut.
“There are people who create buzz for the wrong reasons, and then there are people who create it for all the right reasons, and Colton is one of the right people,” said current teammate Andretti Autosport Alexander Rossi talk about Herta in May. “And to be clear, this is not something that he went out and promoted. If anything he shied away from it. But that talk happened anyway, and it was a great sign of how talented he really is.”
That’s why last month, when Herta spun around in a 2021 McLaren in Portugal, so many people were rarely interested in a test session. It is the culmination of the buzz that has built since he signed a development contract with the team in March, the most talked about driver of the McLaren boss’s endless 2022 procurements, Zak Brown – including those openly pursued by Alpine. reserve driver Oscar Piastri and IndyCar champion 2021 Alex Palou by Chip Ganassi Racing.
It’s also why, when Herta walked the paddles at the Miami Grand Prix in May, he created as much buzz as most drivers who actually compete in the event, especially when he owner Michael Andretti is clearly jostling through the same garage, attracting signatures to add F1 to Andretti Autosport’s Lineup. Meanwhile, Andretti’s father, Mario, stated live on ESPN: “I’d love to see what Colton can do here.”
Elder Andretti is the only American driver to win the F1 world championship, as the boy was moved by his family to Pennsylvania when he was a teenager back to Europe to race as an adult. He is still the last American driver to stand on the F1 podium, and that was 44 years ago. When Michael made his swing at the tournament in 1993, it was a disaster, but a common story for state racers. After just one season, scoring seven points and feuding with McLaren teammate Ayrton Senna, Andretti returned to IndyCar amid F1 chattering, “See? The Americans can’t cut it here.”
No American driver has raced full-time in F1 since 2007, when Herta was just 7 years old. No one has been behind the wheel of F1 since Rossi’s part-time lap for the closed Marussia during the Brazilian Grand Prix on 15 November 2015, when 15-year-old Herta was racing around England in the complete F4 series. brand new as a teammate of the current McLaren F1 driver Lando Norris.
Norris reiterates Herta’s F4 nickname “Hooligan Herta” due to his tendency to run into the pitch as he is very aggressive in the corners. For the European set, that was seen as a deepening of Herta’s capabilities. To Herta, he knew it was nothing more than an old joke.
However, his role in the F1 silly season drama off the charts this summer, however accidental, was inevitable. It doesn’t take much for a search engine to find stories just about Herta who can try to fight Daniel Ricciardo out of his McLaren trip to be reunited with Norris.
On Thursday, an Autosport column titled “The unpredictable truth about F1’s ‘American driver’ dream” brought the social media world of motorsport into a frenzy. Some say it was Herta’s time. Others said he needed to be in line behind another American, who signed Williams and Ft. Logan Sargeant, born in Lauderdale, has worked his way up the traditional European Formula ladder. Some were quick to point to Herta’s disappointing 2022 IndyCar stats, numbers that would seem to hinder his ability to achieve a Super License. Others posted links to recordings of a radio conversation between Colton in the car and his father, also his race strategist, and famous arguments in their race.
For the IndyCar crowd, that bloodbath has always been a source of entertainment. Last week, Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin welcome Herta to their fame The show “Bus Bros” on YouTube and immediately began on his radio ratings with his father as “lovable” and proof of the closeness of their relationship.
“That’s why we can talk to each other the way we do on the radio,” Herta explained to Bros. “And obviously if he’s not a good strategist, that’s not going to happen. But he’s a good strategist.”
He handles it all with the same gentle style. He must. Such “controversies” are simply part of a gig, even a gig he doesn’t have yet.
“It’s all flattering, and I suppose it’s a compliment to have my name in the middle of all of this because in the end, hopefully, it means someone thinks I’m a good racer.” Herta said after the test in Portugal. “Again, I’m always focused on what’s next, but I’m also always working to appreciate where I am. If F1 never happens or if it takes a long time for it to happen. I never want that to stop me from appreciating the opportunities I have right now.I’m young and there’s so much more that could happen in my life and career, anywhere. . For now, it’s at IndyCar.”
And IndyCar, the close-knit celebrity community, has no problem appreciating the Chosen One while he’s still picking them. Just ask Bus Bros, who jokingly asked Herta where he ranks among the “180 drivers under contract right now” with Brown’s McLaren. As Herta navigated his response, McLaughlin cut him off and addressed the entire IndyCar stage.
“Honestly, we don’t want you to leave us.”
