Colton Herta has to prove that he is ready to race in Formula 1 through his planned step to race in Formula 2 next to his Cadillac F1 Testrol, according to Dan Towriss.
Cadillac announced Herta last week as a test driver, where the Californier Indycar left to pursue his dream of racing in F1 in the future. In addition to that confirmed position, Herta will compete in F2 to gain further experience and stay sharp, and Towriss says that this will be the 25-year-old shop window to try to earn a future F1 race chair.
“This is Formula 1, he must show that he is ready to race on this large stage from that point of view,” Towriss told Racer. “And I think it is both what he learns and then showing and trust in the team and management that he is ready to go.”
There must not be a definitive confirmation that Herta has protected a drive in F2 for next year, but Towriss says that the timing was a challenge because it had to juggle the end of the Indycar season and when most F2 chairs are completed.
“If you work backwards and perhaps think about it from our perspective, we had to select and announce our Formula 1 directors. And I think most would imagine that that had to be done first.
“Colton has big shoes to fill in Indycar. Will Power came up – that really can’t happen until the end of the season – and those two things should happen at the same time. We can’t just have the open chair. And then we had to do everything before the F2 season gets crazy and there is no chair available for him.
“So there was definitely a whole choreography of this that was not easy to get out of that position, if you think of all the pieces that had to fall into place, just to have the opportunity to be possible.”
Team Head Graeme Lowdon says that the Herta news with recently announced racing administrators Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas has been informed, and understood that Cadillac would already be planning for the future.
“Yes, they understand it completely,” Lowdon confirmed to Racer. “And there is no predicted route here or something.
“Both Valtteri and Checo have long been in Formula 1 and they know that every year there are drivers who want to replace them and the other 20 drivers on the schedule. So this is no different. Only because we have our own racers does not mean that we should not do anything else at all.
“There are no Givens here. Nothing has been determined in advance. We have said from the beginning, everything we do is based on merit. And it happens that Colton is American and that is a big plus for fans and us as an American team.
“So it’s a kind of plus plus. But make no mistake, he is on merit here. And we just look at his track record to see that that is the case.”
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