IndyCar race-winner Colton Herta hasn’t given up hope he may race in Formula 1 one day after a potential chance to join the series through Andretti last year failed to materialize.
Michael Andretti was involved in negotiations to take over Sauber, which runs Alfa Romeo’s F1 team, until the deal fell apart in October. The former McLaren F1 racer planned to place Herta at the team had his plans come to fruition.
Herta ended last year’s IndyCar season strongly with wins in the final two races. However he is still nurturing hopes of becoming America’s first F1 driver since his team mate Alexander Rossi seven years ago.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to do Formula 1,” said Herta. “I want to do a lot of stuff in my career. But a lot of it also needs certain timing.”
Herta, who was Lando Norris’s team mate in Britain’s MSA Formula (now British Formula 4) series in 2015, says he has time on his side if the chance to race in F1 arises soon.
“Formula 1 is one of those things [that] if you’re 28, you’re not going to Formula 1, unfortunately, that’s just how it works. So the time is right for me.
“If I got the opportunity, I’d have to have a good think about it. But I most likely would do it because I want to run in Formula 1 at some point.
Report: Andretti-Alfa Romeo F1 deal fell apart at 11th hour due to “control issues”“I think people forget that I’m 21 years old and I can come back in five years and still run 15 years in IndyCar and be 40. So I definitely want to give it a crack if I get the opportunity.”
“But I’m definitely not disappointed at all in IndyCar,” Herta added. “I like this series more than any series in the world, and I enjoy racing in a lot. But there’s just a lot of stuff that I’d like to try my racing career outside of IndyCar also.”
Ahead of his fourth full season in IndyCar, Herta said he is aiming to raise his game on the oval circuits which make up five of this year’s 17 races.
“I really want to win a race on an oval,” he said. “We’ve had so much speed on some different ovals at different times, but I don’t even think I’ve finished on the podium on an oval yet. We’ve been close, finished fourth a few times, fifth a few times at some places. But that’s something that I really want to work on for 2022.
“Specifically Texas: In 2019 I was almost there but ever since then, with the Aeroscreen, we’ve just struggled there as a team. So we’re working on that and obviously focusing on Iowa now, we have a test at Iowa later in the year, so that’ll be interesting.”
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