Friday was a big day for Colton Herta, as the 26-year-old continued his progression to a possible Cadillac Formula 1 race seat—having made the bold decision to put his career in the United States on hold—with a drive in the current Cadillac F1 car.
His first outing in a race weekend FP1 session wasn’t his first run in an F1 machine; he had a session in a 2024 Alpine rented for the occasion a few weeks ago. But Barcelona was his first experience of a 2026 car, and all the complexities that come with the current power units. Seat time in GM’s simulator gave him some idea of what to expect, but throw in 21 other cars on track and the need to avoid impeding issues—not to mention the fact that he had just done a practice session in his F2 car, and thus had to adjust his references—and it was far from an easy public debut.
The hour was about mileage rather than lap times, but for the record, he finished it in 22nd place, 1.7 seconds off teammate Valtteri Bottas. He will have three more Friday rookie sessions, with the full program yet to be determined, before the end of the season.
“I think we got done what we wanted to get done, which was good,” Herta said on Friday evening. “Hopefully I provided some good data for them to look at. And just from a more personal side, it’s very enjoyable to be a part of something like that. An official session, it means a lot to me—especially having a Cadillac badge, as an American.”
Even experienced drivers have found the 2026 cars tricky to drive, and thus they are far from rookie friendly, even with the preparation that sims provide. Herta, though, sounded philosophical about his thoughts after his first stint. “It’s hard to say in an hour, right? You don’t get too comfortable. I think in a few more FP1s, I’ll have a better answer. But for me, I think the correlation and the simulator work that we did was quite good. Obviously, references change when you get into the real thing, and it feels real, so there’s a different aspect of it. But I think all the prep work was very helpful for what we did.”
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An F1 rookie program is not just about being on track—an hour here or there is not going to make or break a career—it’s also a question of being embedded in the team, sitting in meetings, and generally getting a feel for everything. “Just to have an understanding of how things work is the most important thing,” said Herta. “Going through what they go through in the pre-event meetings, pre-event prep. And then most importantly, seeing how the session plays out, what they’re looking at, what they’re trying to achieve during the session. It’s all new, and it’s quite different to what I’ve done in the past, just from the perspective of there’s so much more to look at; so many more sensors, so much more development—and quick development, race to race, there’s a lot of things happening. So that’s all very new to me, and something that I’m kind of trying to pick up on as fast as possible.”
F1 may be the goal, but for the time being, Formula 2 is Herta’s day job and his main priority. It’s not necessarily about winning races and the title, it’s also a question of using the feeder series as part of the assimilation process, learning the tracks and just being part of the environment. He’s had a solid, if unspectacular, start to the season, picking up a couple of seventh places and an eighth in four race weekends; he currently lies 13th of 22 in the championship table. He’s been outscored by teammate Ritomo Miyata, but the Toyota protégé is in his third season, and knows the ropes.
Herta’s goal is clear: “Just continuing to improve. Obviously, as a racing driver, you want to compete, you want to win, you want to do well. And that’s what we’re striving for, and unfortunately, at the moment, that’s not what’s happening. So we need to just kind of put our heads down and continue to improve. But I think it’s been very clear every weekend that it’s getting better.”
Perhaps given a boost by his F1 mileage, and having benefited from coming to a track he knows well from testing, he qualified a personal best P8 in Barcelona. “I was happy to get back here,” he said. “This is a place where I probably have the most experience. I think everybody does in European racing; there’s so much winter testing that goes on here. But this is a place where I had three days in the F2 car pre-season, so coming back to something that’s a little bit more familiar, I think, was very helpful.”
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He feels that he’s making progress. “I don’t want to say it’s a breakthrough, but it’s a big weekend for me, as far as what’s happened in F2 so far,” Herta said. “Unfortunately, they don’t pay points today, so it doesn’t really matter yet but we need to continue and keep our heads down, improve the race pace. I think it’s a clear step in practice and qualifying pace, but we need to keep up that effort.”
He knows he can improve on how he’s doing currently, as well. “I think I just take it race-by-race, to be honest. And yes, I think I want progress, and I want to be better every weekend. I think we’ve shown that so far, so if we can kind of continue that trend, that’s going to be most positive in my eyes,” he said. “But like I said, like anything that I do, I want to compete in, right? So I want to do better than I’m doing at the moment.”
At the end of the day he’s going to have to prove that he’s the right man for a Cadillac race seat, nationality notwithstanding. And F2 is the key. “I think no one expects more of me than myself. I want to be competitive. Everything I do, I want to be competitive. I want to win. It doesn’t matter if I’m playing Yahtzee with my girlfriend, I want to win!”
“It’s a process, and to see the progress is nice,” he added, “but I want to do good and I want to be competitive. I don’t make those decisions, so all I can do is try to show that I’m ready and try to prepare the best I can and put myself in the best position. So if they make the call, then I’ll be ready, hopefully.”