Colton Herta: 'my goal is Formula 1'

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3:47Racing drivers are never satisfied and they never give up on a challenge. Colton Herter, IndyCar star, IndyCar race winner, and surely a champion of the future, isn't happy with that path. For many years, he's been chasing Formula One. He came close before and he thought he'd missed his moment. It was disappointing. You know, when that didn't happen, I was like, look, OK, probably won't have another opportunity. And then this came around and I was like, geez, count my lucky stars. Cadillac have given him a chance. But if he's going to drive for them in F1, he's got to earn it. He knows that means putting the work in.

4:31My goal of coming over here and doing F2 is to prepare myself to be a Formula One driver the best I can with Cadillac in mind. And having this opportunity to try to get there and try to achieve that dream and that goal of being a Formula One driver is very easy for me to say yes to.

4:49Hello, everyone. I'm Tom Clarkson, and this is F1 Beyond the Grid and a chat with one of the most intriguing drivers in the paddock today. What Colton Herter is doing is so unusual, walking away from a successful IndyCar career to try and work his way up from Formula 2 to Formula 1. That's going to be tough. F2 is a difficult category and Colton's having to learn a new way of driving. As Cadillac's test driver, he'll get to drive their F1 car in practice sessions this year, but he wants to prove that he belongs on a Grand Prix grid. We talk about Colton's love of motorsport, watching his dad, indie legend Brian Hurta, racing when he was just a few weeks old, moving to Europe as a teenager to race alongside Lando Norris, and his determination to get to F1.

5:42Colton is committed and he's a true racer. I think you'll enjoy getting to know him. Colton, thanks for your time. How are you? Good, good. How are you? I'm good. Welcome to Blighty. Welcome to England. Thank you. We're speaking at Silverstone at Cadillacs HQ, where you're having a seat fit in the MAC26. Are you snug in there? How comfortable are you in the car? It's definitely like a pinch me moment, like a realization of how close it is and how close to driving it is. But yeah, getting comfortable. Is the process the same? every seat fit whether it's an indie car a sports car a formula one car is the process the same i think at this point generally yes um you know you either use some form of two-part foam or a bead seat then you get it shipped off to um to go get it scanned and make it lighter basically um and i i think that's pretty pretty general across all the stuff that i've done so far is the driving position in formula one different to what you've experienced before yes yeah well Well, I think for the most part, the European open wheel cars are different to the US open wheel cars, apart from a few in the US.

6:56But if you look at a lot of the European cars, you know, where your legs are, the car kind of bumps up quite a bit and comes up. So your feet are raised quite a bit compared to the Indy car. So I would say the back positioning is similar, but your feet are a little bit higher. And the visibility is a little bit less because of that, because the tub comes up on the front a bit more. So are you lying down more? Maybe a little bit, but I would say the back positioning and how the back starts to come up is similar. It's just a little bit of a different feel because you got your legs up here instead of maybe down here.

7:28And what are your particular preferences? Do you like to be close to the wheel? Where do you want the pedals? You know, I think it depends. One, I would say generally it's pretty normal and average compared to a lot of drivers, but the only thing that's weird about me is I don't like to run a heel rest. and that's because when I push the pedal instead of going on like this, I actually push with my toes and so my heel comes up and so if I run a heel rest, then I can't get forward with my heel. It kind of stops it. That's so interesting. There's one weird thing about me. Well, there's probably a lot, but that's one of them.

8:07What is it about your toes? I think it's something that I picked up in karting and it's been like that ever since. Do you have a lot of throttle travel? No, everything else is pretty normal about how I set the car up. But that's one weird thing. I mean, I can run a heel rest, it never gets used because my heel ends up just flying over the thing. The reason you're having the seat fit, and you alluded to it earlier, is that Cadillac have just announced that you're going to be doing four FP1s for the team this year, starting in Barcelona, which is a great racetrack to kick it all off. How much are you looking forward to that?

8:43I mean, so much. You know, I think that was, it's always my goal of coming over here and doing this and doing F2 is to prepare myself to be a Formula One driver the best I can and with Cadillac in mind, right? So it's cool to see that kind of coming together. you know my first taste of the car in Barcelona is going to be super special you know that's a place that a lot of us drivers know really well you know basically all of winter testing right in Formula One for a long time has taken place in Spain or Portugal and when it's in Spain it's usually at Barcelona but people don't tell you that when it's cheaper to run and race cars in F4 and F3 even in F2 basically all your testing happens in Barcelona or about 80 % of it through the winter.

9:30So it's a place that's somewhat familiar to me, you know, still, I haven't been back there since 2016, 10 years ago, but the track hasn't changed too much. We had a little bit of a different layout. I think the last two corners, last two corners, but I'll take that. You know, there's a lot of places that I haven't been to and I have to learn, you know, 20 corners. So, um, if I had to relearn two corners, I'll, I'll take that. That's fine. You know, some of the curb profiling changes and, and, um, you know, some of the, uh, abrasions on the tracks or bumps might change here there but for the most part it's it's a place that i'll be pretty comfortable with i think um and yeah looking forward to it i'm super excited for it's gonna be super cool you've done a lot of testing in your time you're an indy car race winner do you expect the rhythm of a practice session in formula one to be different to what you've experienced before yeah well i mean it's it's always going to be different no matter what you you step into whether it's like for the first time for me stepping into like the the bmw gtp car or the Cadillac GTP or the IndyCar, IndyLights car, everything has its little nuances and differences and run plans and how the car is.

10:37And most of it's kind of dictated by the tire. Whereas in Formula One, you see a lot more push, cool, push kind of sequences rather than maybe an IndyCar, you might get two pushes in a row. So stuff like that might be a little bit different. You know, you have to charge the battery a lot more when you're doing these push, cool, push sequences. So there will be some differences and the car will feel different. But at the end of the day, it's still an engine and four tires, and you have to try to go as fast as possible, and you kind of learn by doing. Those practice sessions are going to see you even more immersed in the Cadillac team, aren't they?

11:12Yeah, and that's something that I'm looking forward to, right? Because for me, it's the ultimate goal, and the objective is to try to be there as a race driver. So to kind of plug myself in and get a little bit of a look of what Walter and Sheko get to do every weekend is going to be super cool. And it's also an opportunity for me to try to help the team and try to do a lot of learning on my own, but try to help them achieve their goal on a race weekend. Colton, tell us then about this passion for Formula One, because looking from the outside in, you're a man who had it all in IndyCar. You were respected by your peers.

11:50You were winning races, what was your second couple of years ago? So, okay, the Indy 500 hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure it would have done in time. What is it about Formula One that has made you walk away from all of that? There's a mutual respect and a mutual love for me on both fronts. When I grew up as a kid, my first race, I was two weeks old, was an IndyCar race, right? And as soon as I kind of grew up a little bit and learned more about other motorsports, you know, my second interest was IMSA because my father was racing there in 2006. 2007 with the Acura. And so I was really interested in, in those cars at that time.

12:27And then I kind of learned about Formula One a little bit later, maybe nine or 10 years old, um, and got addicted to that. But for me, I'm just a motor sports fan. Um, and there are so many things that, that I want to drive, but at the top of the list right there with IndyCar is, is Formula One for me, um, on a personal level. So having this opportunity to try to get there and, and try to achieve that dream and that goal of being a Formula 1 driver, you know, I saw it as a great opportunity. It's very easy for me to say yes to. You know, for me, it's just being a motorsport fan, right? Like on my off weekend, I'm watching Formula E or I'm watching Formula 1, if I'm not there, IndyCar, NASCAR, whatever it might be, WEC.

13:06For me, I don't really follow any other sports, so it's really just motorsport. And I just like it. I like watching it. I have a great respect for a lot of different guys in the sport that do all these different racing series and whatnot. not so it's uh it's cool to to kind of be able to to try new things and that's this is the opportunity and something that i really has it been an odd experience for you this year you know like look have you been looking over your shoulder at what's been going on an indycar i'm speaking to you now when indycar is in long beach one of the iconic races does it feel a bit weird being here and not there um i would say the first few weekends was they were a little bit weird a little bit strange like oh hey like i should like the last eight years i've been there doing that and then you change and whatnot so just like anything like you get a new job in life and and it's a little bit weird at first but then you get settled into it and it feels normal and natural um and and that's kind of where i'm at but you know it i will say it is weird to to kind of watch indie car races um for still for a little bit but um no it's been cool it's been cool to be a fan of it people watching this listening to this may not be aware that you've been on the fringes of f1 for a while you know five years ago almost got across the line with sauber then there was interest from alpha tauri as well and then there was the super license drama has all of those disappointments fueled the desire to get into formula one even more yeah yeah you know i think look this is a sport and first and foremost it's a business right it's got to put out money and and got to collect money and um so i understand that and and i understand that that side of it but it was disappointing you know to to have those two instances where i thought maybe maybe not so much on the sauber one um i thought there's a chance with that one but the alfatari deal seemed very real to me and then you know when that didn't happen i was like look okay kind of getting up there in age probably won't have another opportunity and then this came around and i was like geez count my lucky stars this is a amazing opportunity and to have the people that are involved in it be involved in it is like super cool for me because i know them for a while now from the indycar side and even walking around here like a lot of guys from when i was racing in europe and engineers mechanics that that i worked with or or knew um it's cool it's it's didn't realize how many people i knew until i came back here and i was like oh man yeah no no few people from from racing for a while it feels third time lucky really doesn't it yeah 100 and you know for me as as far as i'm concerned i'm fully focused on on making this one the one that that counts and works and so yeah that's the fully focused on on trying to get here um and dealing with my f2 career at the moment and and trying to go through through that side of things and learning as much as i can so that's uh that's kind of where we're at this episode is sponsored by indeed there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes of this show, booking guests across time zones, tight turnaround edits and constant time management.

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19:15colton just a couple of questions about those two previous uh opportunities that didn't happen First of all, I think it was Mario Andretti who let the cat out of the bag when he said on the Sauber simulator, you've been faster than Raikkonen and Giovinazzi. Is that true? Yes, it was true. But, you know, I think it's cool to be able to say you're faster than them in the simulator, but it doesn't really mean much unless you can do it in real life. I think it's a good thing for teams to see, and then they're like, okay, maybe he's worth the investment of a test. You know, it definitely feels good when you get out of the sim, But as far as does it equate to real life success?

19:55Maybe, maybe not. That's a cool thing to say. He's hoping it was Barcelona as well, right? That was at Hungary. Oh, is it? It was at Hungary. We did a few tracks, I think. No, we didn't on that one. That was just Hungary. But no, that was cool. And I enjoyed my time there. It's a really cool factory that they have there and especially the wind tunnel setup that they have there. and yeah it was neat to see all that all that was going on and um it's the first time i met voltory because he was coming over from mercedes to there so he was doing a seat fit and yeah that's fortunately nothing came of it but yeah it was a cool time to have a little bit of an insight into it and the alpha towery yeah deal there was a period of time in the f1 paddock where we were all led to believe that the deal was on right is that how it felt for you yes and no i really like the straightforwardness of of dealing with dr marco and so there's no gray areas with helmet exactly and sometimes it hurts as a driver you don't want to hear some things but uh sometimes you need to hear him but the good part about all of that was he was he's very straightforward on the possibility of it you know one day it was if i had to put a percentage maybe it's 80 and then And the next day is like, oh, 40, wait, we clawed back.

21:13So maybe 60. So there was a very real possibility. You know, I had a contract from them, just unable to sign because I didn't have the super license. And, you know, they were feeling really good at a point that they thought, you know, it was going to happen. And then, but they weren't sure. And eventually I couldn't really wait too much more. I had to sign a new deal in IndyCar. and Michael and Dan were very gracious to have me back in IndyCar. And so I signed with them, which ended up being the right thing because I didn't get allowed and I would have had no Formula 1 seat and no IndyCar seat and don't know what I would have done then.

21:53But yeah, it was a very strange time. It was always day to day. It's so hard. Even for me, I was looking at the reports and I was like, man, these people think it's going to happen. Maybe it'll happen. and then he called Dr. Marco and he's like, well, don't be so sure and maybe this stuff can happen. But yeah, I was very gracious of the time of like everybody, of being able to go into the Red Bull sim, you know, being able to talk to Dr. Marco about the possibility of Formula One. And a lot of people took a lot of time out of their days to kind of point me in the right direction and help me out.

22:30So very gracious for that. Had you ever had the opportunity to join the Red Bull Young Driver program? No, I didn't. but I wasn't really over here that long. You know, I did two seasons, British F4 and Euro Formula Open, Formula 3. I don't think I was over here long enough. I don't think I did probably enough to warrant it at that time, but no, never had any interest at that point. Colton, let's talk about that time. You were 15 when you came over. Yeah, I was young. Which is really young, right? Yeah. Is that a difficult decision to make as a family, to go to the other side of the world? Especially if you're my mom.

23:07I think my dad was... What did mom say? I think she cried a little bit, but she cried on the way to the airport after they had dropped me off. I was very fortunate that they let me do it. Thing was, I was living with my mechanic, so there really wasn't a lot of... Who was like 20 or 21? There wasn't really a lot of supervision, and I had to really kind of grow up fast because of it, which is... Well, one, it was great. I did 30 races and 25 test days in one year. I was in the car two times a week, at least uh so learn learn to bucket load right yeah it was amazing um but it also matured me extremely fast out of the race car right i had to learn how to cook how to clean for myself how to take care of myself be like hey look we have a test day here uh what time do i need to get there when's my trains leaving i was gonna say you didn't have a driving license right so how did you travel around the uk uh with the team or on a train um which thankfully you guys have a great system here in the uk that you can kind of get around the country easily if you don't have a car um it was fun to be on my own at that point i enjoyed it and uh i definitely missed my parents but it was it was fun was your teammate lando norris helpful yeah did you hang out no i don't think we ever hung out away from the track but we got on really well when we were at the track and obviously with 52 days in the car you're seeing each other a lot and that doesn't count prep days or simulator days and whatnot so we spent a lot of time together and you know still whenever he comes to to vegas we'll play golf um and whatnot and we'll see each other but uh he was great i think we we got on really well we learned a lot from each other and really pushed each other that year um it was very very enjoyable because it was all about driving that year i remember just before your mclaren test in 2022 which we'll come on to in a minute i remember Orlando saying Colton's quick.

25:03Colton's really quick. Very quick through fast corners as well. Good thing I was making money doing oval racing. Yeah, I don't know. I guess maybe. It's very complimentary. Once you reach the top, everybody's talent's so close, so it's hard to kind of stand out. When you're learning at that age, I think there's maybe a little bit more disparity between drivers just because you have a natural talent and then you have to refine everything. And that's where kind of your weaknesses are smaller once you kind of get up and through the ranks and whatnot. You learn more about yourself and your driving style to make that style better.

25:42But yeah, no, I definitely was not scared of anything at that point. How different is the racing culture in the UK compared to the US? I mean, is the language the same? Is oversteer still oversteer and understeer still understeer? Yeah, I think it's pretty similar, right? There's some small things that they would say are different or we call parts something different. But I think the biggest thing is the passion is there on both sides. If you're in America, the fans are incredibly passionate. If you're here, they're incredibly passionate. And that's the most important thing when you're working at a team and you want the guys to love what they do and enjoy it.

26:18Because it's not an easy thing to be like, hey, look, you're going to be gone for 24 weekends or whatever. And then not only that, you're going to fly back on Sunday. you're going to work from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday. And then you're going to fly again on Thursday and go somewhere else. So passion is kind of what drives everybody in the sport and what gets everybody into it in the first place. And that's really important. Is the intensity different in Europe? Because I've heard a lot of drivers talk about this and the reason people come to Europe is because the racing intensity is slightly different.

26:52Or is that a myth? I've always thought like it doesn't matter where you go, there's going to be somebody that's fast. Um, and that's somebody that's going to be hard to beat. Like if you were to go to the middle of Iowa, the middle of nowhere in the cornfields, and there's a go-kart track there, there'll be some kid that all he does is drive around that go-kart track and will give you a really hard time at beating them. So I think that part, no, I think you'll find quick people anywhere in the world, um, and specialists at any sort of racing or any sort of track. I think there's a incredible ability to learn in Europe.

27:28Um, I think because the engineers and junior formula are really way more focused on driver development than I would say in the U S. And so I think that's maybe where the differences and where you would come over here for, I think you drive a lot more over here for the most part. And because of that, maybe, maybe a lot more people come to Europe from racing as far as like from North America, south america asia and whatnot so i think you're gonna find fast people anywhere i think it's that ability to learn is is probably a little bit greater here in the track time that you get it's probably a little bit greater here than than anywhere else in the world what about at home because we've talked about your mom's reaction to you coming to europe but of course you know your dad you said you know he was racing in imsa one of your earliest memories but you know dad was a great racing driver brian her to indy indy car champ car and irl winner and things um was it inevitable that you were going to become a racing driver given what he was doing well no because i have two siblings and they have no interest in being race car drivers um but i tried it have they caught it yeah they've all tried it but for me it was like i was always pushing for it so i think early on i was maybe five years old when i started asking hey can i get a go-kart and whatnot and it's probably came from dario franchiti dan weldon and tony canaan who were teammates with him in indy car at the time were saying hey you should get a go-kart i probably didn't know what a go-kart was i was like hey can i get a go-kart and they were kind of saying that to wind your old man exactly yeah exactly but he never pressured me into into racing i think he was happy as long as i found something that kind of satisfied me in life um and so i think he likes even more that it's racing because you can relate to it well, but it's never pressured.

29:15So I started asking around five and a half years old for a go-kart. And so he said, okay, rented one, went out and did a track day and I was hooked immediately. Um, they got me a go-kart for my sixth birthday and that's when I started racing. And I guess the rest is history as they say, but yeah, it was, it was never anything, anything else. They had to, they made me do normal sports growing up, baseball football uh soccer but it never i never had an interest in in any of it when i was practicing for those i was always thinking of i'd rather be at the go-kart track right now driving right and dad was a great open wheel racer did he harbor formula one ambitions you know i think he he thought about it um he drove a minardi at donington i remember at donington yeah um um justin wilson was also testing that day i think in the jag he was actually pretty close at one point on that deal of getting like three races in the minardi yeah with paul stoddart was probably that era of minardi was it i can't yeah beyond before before me but um much like me he's a fan of motorsport as a whole um and with that came for sure probably an ambition for formula one at one point.

30:31But then, you know, I think it got to the point where, where me and my sister were born and it was probably going to be difficult to relocate the whole family and whatnot. And stayed in IndyCar. But yeah, it was, it's definitely where my love's come from. My first race was the Long Beach Grand Prix and I was two weeks old. So I was almost born at the racetrack. And when you're brought up around it, I didn't know any better. My mom told me one time I was on her shoulders at chain link fence, like watching the race cars go by. There was a kid next to me. I turned to him and I said, which one's your dad?

31:06So it just didn't, like for me, it was, I didn't know any better. It was just like, this is how life is. And everybody's dad drives cars. And that's so cool. But it's just like anything in life. I think you look up to your parents and I definitely look up to mine. And you see what they do and you kind of gravitate towards it. and so you would watch the f1 races with dad at some silly hour of the night yeah i think that kind of came later a little bit older probably around nine or ten it was something that that you know i always like to do was was watch racing with him you know because he's so busy on weekends usually so when we get a weekend off and we can watch racing it's kind of rare so let's talk about f2 now is it what you're expecting i didn't really have an expectation going in you know i didn't know what it was going to be like i didn't know exactly what the car what the tire combination what the engine was going to be like or was going to feel like.

31:56So I didn't set any expectations as far as, you know, how this is going to feel or how it's going to look mentally in my head. But no, I think it's been enjoyable so far. Very important for my learning. And I think as far as learning tracks and more importantly, how the tire kind of reacts is a big part. That's one of the things Romain Grosjean said to me when he made the switch over to IndyCar. He said it's like an F2 car, just different tires. Do you see that comparison between IndyCar and F2? I do not. but um yes what are the main differences then you know i think you just like the feel of the car and how the power is put down um and how the gears shift and you know obviously the tire deck that you have over over here is greater but the seating position is different how the power is put down is different the the sound is different so there's a lot of differences that that don't really kind to key into like the back of my brain is like oh this is an indycar um but that's just me personally just a quick question on the aero screen that you have an indycar versus the halo has it has the halo taken a bit of getting used to or no not at all yeah well because we have the aero screen but we still have the bar down the front so you still have the pillow so it's kind of like a halo but just with the just cool protection yes it's definitely nice to have like wind back and be able to feel some wind um man when the early days of those i'm going to speak in fahrenheit because i don't know exactly what what the equation would be but it was we had a race at india it was 150 degrees in the cockpit fahrenheit i'm going to guess that's probably around 45 maybe more 50 uh celsius but so it's incredibly hot i remember guys are getting out like some a few guys were really hurting um but yeah and then you come over here and you have the win back.

33:40It's so nice. I completely forgot about that until we got back over here and I was like, yeah, feels good. This episode is sponsored by Indeed. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes of this show, booking guests across time zones, tight turnaround edits, and constant time management. And when things get chaotic, you realize pretty quickly how important it is to have the right person on your team. If I had to hire someone tomorrow, I wouldn't just want a good editor. I'd want someone who understands pace in long-form interviews and can work fast under pressure. And in moments like that, you think, this is a job for sponsored jobs.