Scott Gulbransen
An American is about to drive a Formula 1 car on a Grand Prix weekend again, and the timing isn’t an accident.
Colton Herta climbs into Sergio Perez’s Cadillac on Friday for the first practice session of the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, marking his first official outing in an F1 car. It’s a milestone the 26-year-old has been chasing the long way around and it lands with an American team that has made no secret of wanting to put one of its own in the cockpit.
Who is Colton Herta and Why Formula 1 Now?
Herta walked away from a settled, successful career in IndyCar to chase this. He moved to Formula 2 this season with HiTech, a step backward in results on paper, with the whole point being to learn the European circuits, bank superlicense points and get his face in front of the F1 paddock. Friday is the clearest sign yet that the gamble is leading somewhere.
“I’m excited for Barcelona,” Herta said. “I feel ready to get out there. I’ve had time in the simulator at Charlotte, learning the track and the procedures to follow during the session.”
The run comes courtesy of F1’s rookie rule, which requires every team to hand a young driver four FP1 sessions across the year, two per car. Barcelona is a popular spot to tick one off, since every driver on the grid knows the circuit cold from years of testing. Perez steps aside to make room, and Herta gets a current car on a track he’s been studying in the sim.
He’s not pretending it’ll be a quiet weekend, either. He’s racing the full Formula 2 round in Barcelona at the same time, which is a lot to juggle for anyone, let alone a driver still getting comfortable in F2 machinery.
“It’s going to be a busy weekend as I’m competing in F2 at the same time,” he said. “But pressure is a privilege, so I’m looking forward to it.”
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America’s Complicated History in Formula 1
Here’s the thing that makes this matter beyond one practice session: the United States loves F1 now, but the sport has spent decades without an American on the grid.
Logan Sargeant most recently carried the flag, racing full-time for Williams in 2023 and partway through 2024 before losing the seat, and the grid has been without an American since. Go back further and the gaps get longer. Alexander Rossi managed only a handful of starts for Marussia in 2015, and you have to reach back to Scott Speed in the mid-2000s for an American who held a seat across a meaningful run of seasons. The last American to win a Grand Prix was Mario Andretti, the 1978 world champion, and that was nearly half a century ago. Phil Hill, the only American-born world champion, took his title in 1961.
So while a Friday practice run isn’t a race seat, it’s a real foot in the door at a time when the appetite for an American star has never been higher. Three Grands Prix now run on U.S. soil, in Austin, Miami and Las Vegas, and Cadillac’s arrival as the grid’s 11th team gave the market an American entrant to rally behind. The team’s interest in Herta is the natural next chapter.
The Bottas rumors hanging over it all
It would be cleaner to tell this story without the awkward subplot, but it’s there, so let’s deal with it.
Herta’s name got pulled into speculation that Cadillac might replace Valtteri Bottas, the 10-time Grand Prix winner, partway through the season. Bottas shot it down in Monaco, calling the chatter made-up and saying the team backs him fully. Team principal Graeme Lowdon went further, calling the rumors fiction with no basis in fact. Asked what drove them, Lowdon had a blunt theory: “Headlines. Click.”
That’s worth keeping in mind. Herta’s FP1 run is a development exercise and a reward for a driver doing the work, not evidence of a seat opening up midseason. His own F2 form backs that up. He sits 13th in the standings, still adjusting after leaving the European single-seater ladder back in 2016, and nobody around the team is pretending the learning curve has been gentle.
A Crowded Rookie Friday
Herta will have plenty of company. Barcelona is where most teams clear their rookie FP1 requirements, and the Friday entry list reads like a tour of F1’s talent pipeline.
Fred Vesti drives the championship-leading Mercedes in place of Kimi Antonelli. Ferrari hands Dino Beganovic Lewis Hamilton’s car, while McLaren gives back-to-back Formula 3 and Formula 2 champion Leo Fornaroli his first F1 practice outing in Lando Norris’s seat. Red Bull runs Ayumu Iwasa, Williams puts Luke Browning in Alex Albon’s car, and Paul Aron handles Audi duty in Nico Hulkenberg’s machine.
It’s a strong group. But for an American audience that has waited a long time for someone to root for, only one name on that list really moves the needle.
