will join Cadillac as its test and development driver next year<\/a>, putting him on the path towards Formula 1.<\/p>\nCadillac has long sought the signature of an American driver for its team, but the availability of one good enough and with sufficient FIA Super Licence points has been a stumbling block.<\/p>\n
Herta has been tipped to join Rodin Motorsport, whose line-up currently consists of Amaury Cordeel and Alex Dunne.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the latest episode of Off Track with Hinch and Rossi, Towriss said Herta was taking \u201ca big risk\u201d with no guarantee that he will get the Cadillac drive in 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have two experienced drivers in the car,\u201d said Towriss.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m confident Colton will get his shot, but he\u2019s got to earn it, right? He\u2019s taking that risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not entitled to that seat, he\u2019s not guaranteed the seat from that standpoint. He\u2019s going over to prove that he belongs in Formula 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we could all say that people who don\u2019t belong in Formula 1, it separates it out pretty quickly if it\u2019s not meant to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
The move from IndyCar to F2 will give Herta the opportunity to learn the Pirelli tyres and the largely European calendar of circuits before a potential F1 graduation in 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been fortunate to keep Colton at Andretti in the IndyCar team and so now he\u2019s going to pursue that dream in Formula 1,\u201d Towriss added.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo do that, he\u2019s going to take a pretty big risk. He\u2019s leaving IndyCar, he\u2019s not going directly to Formula 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a test and development driver role and so he\u2019s going to be going into F2, he\u2019s going to learn tracks, he\u2019s going to learn tyres.<\/p>\n
\u201cTyres are a big part of that. Very different to IndyCar from that standpoint. So I just couldn\u2019t be more proud of Colton to be willing to take that risk to pursue his dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the carrot of a F1 drive dangled above his head and even with no guarantee that an opportunity would come, Herta stayed the course with Andretti.<\/p>\n
Towriss revealed just how close Herta came to F1 when Andretti tried to acquire Sauber.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was something we were looking at a few years ago when Michael (Andretti) and I were looking to acquire Sauber. That deal didn\u2019t happen,\u201d Towriss explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings kind of fell through at the last minute, but it really started Colton on this journey where he really started to show a lot of promise in Formula 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe went over to Switzerland, got on the simulator and within an hour was faster than the two Formula 1 drivers with the team at that time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat led to some other things to show some real excitement along the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo he\u2019s built up a natural body of work that not everybody knows about in Formula 1 in terms of the tests that he\u2019s done from that standpoint, even to drawing interest from Red Bull.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colton Herta gets \u2018dream\u2019 F1 drive with Cadillac<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colton Herta (left) is interviewed by Fox Sports’ Jack Harvey. Image: Aaron Skillman IndyCar\u2019s youngest race winner will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5754,5755,5756,111,139,5757,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-4141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-cadillac-f1","9":"tag-colton-herta","10":"tag-indycar","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-ntt-indycar-series","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Cadillac](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Colton-Herta-and-Jack-Harvey-Chevrolet-Detroit-Grand-Prix-By_-Aaron-Skillman_Large-Image-Without-Wat.jpeg\")