In his first F1 test, Colton Herta impresses McLaren team over two days at Portimao

By Jul 12, 2022, 2:30 PM EDT
Colton Herta Super License
McLaren F1 Team
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Driving a Formula One car for the first time, Colton Herta impressed the McLaren team during a two-day F1 test at the Portimao circuit in Portugal.

The Andretti Autosport NTT IndyCar Series driver completed 162 laps Monday and Tuesday in a 2021 McLaren MCL35M at the 4.653-kilometer road course where F1 raced in 2020-21. Though no lap times were provided (the team and driver both said varying conditions would have made comparison difficult), McLaren F1 Team principal Andreas Seidl said Herta excelled at adapting to a car that is faster, more powerful and an upgrade in technological sophistication over his full-time IndyCar ride.

“I have to say the team was quite impressed how Colton was dealing with all these challenges and with his professional approach,” Seidl said. “ His physical preparation was enabling him to keep going throughout the two days knowing how challenging this can be in a Formula one car on a track like Portimao. In the end, his approach allowed him to build pace gradually and confidence. And finding the right balance between taking risks and still keeping the car on track.”

Seidl said the team put Herta through the paces with race simulation runs, varying tire compounds and fuel loads and also focusing on different driving techniques.

Herta ended the test with the confidence he can be an F1 driver – and he’s hoping he left the same impression with McLaren, even though it wasn’t the initial goal of the test.

“It’s hard to get in a race car and not drive it as fast as you possibly can,” Herta said. “That was the goal of getting over here was get acclimated, get up to speed and really see what I can do in a race car. It was a lot of fun. It was super special to drive and handled beautifully. I was able to make some setup adjustments in the afternoon and get it more to my liking. You really want to impress people with how fast you can drive a race car no matter what the circumstances.

“(F1) is a goal of mine and has been for a while now. … It’s been amazing. All the engineers have been great at getting me up to speed. Which was the biggest thing. I wanted to see what these cars were all about, and luckily, McLaren was able to give me that chance.”

Said Seidl: “The team will go into data and detail to get an initial idea of the potential Colton has shown in our car. And then we’ll have quite a picture and good idea. That will be part of our evaluation as well as to what next potential steps could look like.”

It’s believed McLaren will have an open ride in 2024 with drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris signed through at least 2023.

“As always here at McLaren, we take it step by step,” Seidl said when asked if Herta was a candidate to drive for the team in ’24. “The objective for this test was to give Colton the chance to experience a Formula One car for the first time and explore its performance. That was the focus. What comes next is something we take step by step. Take our time as well. That’s where we are.”

Herta, 22, has made no secret of his desire to race Formula One. He signed an extension last year through the 2023 season with Andretti Autosport, which intended to field him in F1 before its deal to acquire a team fell through last fall. IndyCar team owner Michael Andretti has indicated he would move Herta to F1 if his bid was successful to land an F1 team in 2024.

In March, McLaren signed Herta to its “Testing of Previous Cars” program, a new F1 regulation that allows teams practice sessions with 1-year-old cars to help evaluate potential drivers and young talent for the future.

Per F1 rules, McLaren is required to field an F1 rookie twice in Friday practice sessions. Seidl said McLaren was evaluating which rookies to use at race weekends after F1’s summer break.

Another possibility for FP1 time would be Arrow McLaren SP IndyCar driver Pato O’Ward, who tested a McLaren F1 car for the first time last year at Abu Dhabi.

Colton Herta did 162 laps and more than 750 kilometers during two days of testing a 2021 McLaren F1 car at Portimao (McLaren F1 Team).

“Further test opportunities for Pato, we are evaluating at the moment,” Seidl said. “He had a good test with us last year in Abu Dhabi. We were very happy as well with how he was preparing himself for that test and performing throughout the test. We’re happy with what both guys have shown so far.”

Herta said he was open to trying Friday practice sessions but preferred the TPC test days because “you get the whole track to yourself and all this time inside the car that obviously in 60 minutes of FP1 you wouldn’t get. It would be cool to get a taste of the 2022 cars and see how they compare to this car. I’d be up for it.”

Herta said he was most struck by the “incredible” amount of torque in an F1 car compared to IndyCar.

“That was the biggest thing for me,” he said. “The straight-line speed, the acceleration and the braking. Obviously, the cornering speeds were higher than in an Indy car, but it didn’t stick out to me as much as how impressive the acceleration and how easy it was with all this horsepower to put the throttle down.

“It is a completely different feel. The feeling you get from Indy car is way different because of the lack of power steering. So the overall kickback and smoothness of the wheel doesn’t really (compare) to what you’d get in a grand prix car. That was something to get used to, slowing down the hands, the speeds are a lot higher on the road courses. Overall it was good to get a feeling and a taste of what these things can do. I felt comfortable right away, the biggest thing was putting a corner or lap together.”

Working through aerodynamic and mechanical adjustments, the California native was impressed by the enhanced tools that F1 drivers use in the cockpit to adjust handling on the fly.

“It was pretty cool to see the balance changes, and what you could do inside the car, which was quite a bit more than what we were able to do inside the Indy car,” he said. “So it was awesome, if you have a problem in one corner, you can adjust it at the flick of a finger.

“It’s hard to say where you rank up against these guys when you’re doing a testing program like this in a year-old car. But as far as how comfortable I got, I did get really comfortable and could feel the limit. Maybe not the consistency that would come with a few more days. But I felt like I was close.”

‘It’s gnarly, bro’: IndyCar drivers face new challenge on streets of downtown Detroit

By Jun 2, 2023, 7:32 PM EDT
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James Black/Penske Entertainment
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DETROIT – It was the 1968 motion picture, “Winning” when actress Joanne Woodward asked Paul Newman if he were going to Milwaukee in the days after he won the Indianapolis 500 as driver Frank Capua.

“Everybody goes to Milwaukee after Indianapolis,” Newman responded near the end of the film.

Milwaukee was a mainstay as the race on the weekend after the Indianapolis 500 for decades, but since 2012, the first race after the Indy 500 has been Detroit at Belle Isle Park.

This year, there is a twist.

Instead of IndyCar racing at the Belle Isle State Park, it’s the streets of downtown Detroit on a race course that is quite reminiscent of the old Formula One and CART race course that was used from 1982 to 1991.

Formula One competed in the United States Grand Prix from 1982 to 1988. Beginning in 1989, CART took over the famed street race through 1991. In 1992, the race was moved to Belle Isle, where it was held through last year (with a 2009-2011 hiatus after the Great Recession).

The Penske Corp. is the promoter of this race, and they did a lot of good at Belle Isle, including saving the Scott Fountain, modernizing the Belle Isle Casino, and basically cleaning up the park for Detroit citizens to enjoy.

The race, however, had outgrown the venue. Roger Penske had big ideas to create an even bigger event and moving it back to downtown Detroit benefitted race sponsor Chevrolet. The footprint of the race course goes around General Motors world headquarters in the GM Renaissance Center – the centerpiece building of Detroit’s modernized skyline.

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Motor City is about to roar with the sound of Chevrolet and Honda engines this weekend as the NTT IndyCar Series is the featured race on the nine-turn, 1.7-mile temporary street course.

It’s perhaps the most unique street course on the IndyCar schedule because of the bumps on the streets and the only split pit lane in the series.

The pit lanes has stalls on opposing sides and four lanes across an unusual rectangular pit area (but still only one entry and exit).

Combine that, with the bumps and the NTT IndyCar Series drivers look forward to a wild ride in Motor City.

“It’s gnarly, bro,” Arrow McLaren driver Pato O’Ward said before posting the fastest time in Friday’s first practice. “It will be very interesting because the closest thing that I can see it being like is Toronto-like surfaces with more of a Long Beach-esque layout.

“There’s less room for error than Long Beach. There’s no curbs. You’ve got walls. I think very unique to this place.

PRACTICE RESULTS: Speeds from the first session

“Then it’s a bit of Nashville built into it. The braking zones look really very bumpy. Certain pavements don’t look bumpy but with how the asphalt and concrete is laid out, there’s undulation with it. So, you can imagine the cars are going to be smashing on every single undulation because we’re going to go through those sections fairly fast, and obviously the cars are pretty low. I don’t know.

“It looks fun, man. It’s definitely going to be a challenge. It’s going to be learning through every single session, not just for drivers and teams but for race control. For everyone.

“Everybody has to go into it knowing not every call is going to be smooth. It’s a tall task to ask from such a demanding racetrack. I think it’ll ask a lot from the race cars as well.”

The track is bumpy, but O’Ward indicated he would be surprised if it is bumper than Nashville. By comparison to Toronto, driving at slow speed is quite smooth, but fast speed is very bumpy.

“This is a mix of Nashville high-speed characteristics and Toronto slow speed in significant areas,” O’Ward said. “I think it’ll be a mix of a lot of street courses we go to, and the layout looks like more space than Nashville, which is really tight from Turn 4 to 8. It looks to be a bit more spacious as a whole track, but it’ll get tight in multiple areas.”

The concept of having four-wide pit stops is something that excites the 24-year-old driver from Monterey, Mexico.

“I think it’s innovation, bro,” O’Ward said. “If it works out, we’ll look like heroes.

“If it doesn’t, we tried.”

Because of the four lanes on pit road, there is a blend line the drivers will have to adhere to. Otherwise, it would be chaos leaving the pits compared to a normal two-lane pit road.

“If it wasn’t there, there’d be guys fighting for real estate where there’s one car that fits, and there’d be cars crashing in pit lane,” O’Ward said. “I get why they did that. It’s the same for everybody. I don’t think there’s a lot of room to play with. That’s the problem.

“But it looks freaking gnarly for sure. Oh my God, that’s going to be crazy.”

Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing believes the best passing areas will be on the long straights because of the bumps in the turns. That is where much of the action will be in terms of gaining or losing a position in the race.

“It will also be really easy to defend in my opinion,” Palou said. “Being a 180-degree corner, you just have to go on the inside and that’s it. There’s going to be passes for sure but its’ going to be risky.

“Turn 1, if someone dives in, you end up in the wall. They’re not going to be able to pass you on the exit, so maybe with the straight being so long you can actually pass before you end up on the braking zone.”

Palou’s teammate, Marcus Ericsson, was at the Honda simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana, before coming to Detroit and said he was shocked by the amount of bumps on the simulator.

Race promoter Bud Denker, the President of Penske Corporation, and Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix President Michael Montri, sent the track crews onto the streets with grinders to smooth out the bumps on the race course several weeks ago.

“They’ve done a decent amount of work, and even doing the track walk, it looked a lot better than what we expected,” Ericsson said. “I don’t think it’ll be too bad. I hope not. That’ll be something to take into account.

“I think the track layout doesn’t look like the most fun. Maybe not the most challenging. But I love these types of tracks with rules everywhere. It’s a big challenge, and you have to build up to it. That’s the types of tracks that I love to drive. It’s a very much Marcus Ericsson type of track. I like it.”

Scott Dixon, who was second fastest in the opening session, has competed on many new street circuits throughout his legendary racing career. The six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion for Chip Ganassi Racing likes the track layout, even with the unusual pit lane.

“I don’t think that’s going to be something that catches on where every track becomes a double barrel,” Dixon said. “It’s new and interesting.

“As far as pit exit, I think Toronto exit is worse with how the wall sticks out. I think in both lanes, you’ve got enough lead time to make it and most guys will make a good decision.”

It wasn’t until shortly after 3 p.m. ET on Friday that the IndyCar drivers began the extended 90-minute practice session to try out the race course for the first time in real life.

As expected, there were several sketchy moments, but no major crashes during the first session despite 19 local yellow flags for incidents and two red flags.

Rookie Agustin Canapino had to cut his practice short after some damage to his No. 78 Dallara-Chevrolet, but he was among many who emerged mostly unscathed from scrapes with the wall.

“It was honestly less carnage than I expected,” said Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood, who was third fastest in the practice after coming off his first career IndyCar victory in the most recent street race at Long Beach in April. “I think a lot of people went off in the runoffs, but no one actually hit the wall (too hard), which actually surprised me. Hats off to them for keeping it clean, including myself.

“It was quite a bit less grip than I think everyone expected. Maybe a little bit more bumpy down into Turn 3 than everyone expected. But overall they did a good job between the two manufacturers. I’m sure everyone had pretty much the same we were able to base everything off of. We felt pretty close to maximum right away.”

Most of the preparation for this event was done either on the General Motors Simulator in Huntersville, North Carolina, or the Honda Performance Development simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana.

“Now, we have simulators that can scan the track, so we have done plenty of laps already,” Power told NBC Sports. “They have ground and resurfaced a lot of the track, so it should be smoother.

“But nothing beats real-world experience. It’s going to be a learning experience in the first session.”

As a Team Penske driver, Power and his teammates were consulted about the progress and layout of the Detroit street course. They were shown what was possible with the streets that were available.

“We gave some input back after we were on the similar what might be ground and things like that,” Power said.

Racing on the streets of Belle Isle was a fairly pleasant experience for the fans and corporate sponsor that compete in the race.

But the vibe at the new location gives this a “big event” feel.

“The atmosphere is a lot better,” Power said. “The location, the accessibility for the fans, the crowd that will be here, it’s much easier. I think it will be a much better event.

“It feels like a Long Beach, only in a much bigger city. That is what street course racing is all about.”

Because the track promoter is also the team owner, Power and teammates Scott McLaughlin and Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden will have a very busy weekend on the track, and with sponsor and personal appearances.

“That’s what pays the bills and allows us to do this,” Power said.

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500