Colton Herta believes he has the pace needed to be successful in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship after enjoying his first test with the McLaren F1 Team earlier this week at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve in Portugal.
Herta, a frontrunner in the NTT IndyCar Series with Andretti Autosport, was signed to a testing programme with McLaren earlier this year and completed one hundred and sixty-two laps of the Portimão track across Monday and Tuesday.
The young American ran in the 2021 McLaren MCL35M in Portugal, but despite Formula 1 having raced at the track last year, Herta says it is impossible to compare lap times to those set by Lando Norris or Daniel Ricciardo.
“This is a track that is so hard to understand that aspect because of the winds and so many different factors,” Herta is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. “It’s a little bit cooler today than it would have been on the race weekend.
“I was happy with the lap time but we’re on a little bit of a different tyre than we’d have had on a race weekend. And if you look back to the quotes from a lot of guys from a year ago, they would talk about how windy it gets here and how much that can change the car here from corner to corner.
“So as far as lap times, it’s kind of hard to say. I think the engineers will know from looking at the data whether you’re fast or not.”
Despite this, Herta believes he has what it takes to be successful in Formula 1, and he wouldn’t be a professional racing driver if he did not believe he could succeed at the highest level.
“Yes, yes… you can’t say no to that question otherwise you wouldn’t be a professional driver,” Herta said when asked if he would be competitive. “So yeah, I do think I’m fast enough.
“Whether they agree, I guess time will tell, and hopefully I can get more chances in the car and hopefully I can show it.”
Herta would be open for Free Practice opportunities later in the year if they are available, and also he would love to have another day or two driving a previous years’ car if given the chance.
“[Friday practice] is certainly something I’d be open to,” Herta said. “As far as TPC [Testing Previous Car] test days, you can’t get better than that because you get the whole track to yourself, you get all this time inside the car that obviously in FP1 in 60mins you wouldn’t get.
“But it would be cool to have a taste of the 2022 cars and see how they compare with this car. So yeah, I’d be up for it.”
Herta Impressed by Acceleration of MCL35M
When comparing the Formula 1 car with his IndyCar, he admits there was a big difference when it came to cornering speed, but it was the acceleration that he really noticed.
“I think the first thing was, when I got off the pitlane speed-limiter, all the torque is pretty incredible,” he said. “Even when you’re at such low rpm, it still pulls. That was the biggest thing for me – the straightline speed, the acceleration, and the braking.
“Obviously the cornering speeds were higher than what you’d get in an IndyCar, but it didn’t stick out to me as much as how impressive the acceleration was and how easy it is to have all this horsepower as soon as you put the throttle down.
“It is a completely different feel. The feeling you get from an IndyCar is very different because the lack of power steering, so the overall kickback in the wheel doesn’t really transcribe to what you get in a Grand Prix car. So that was something to get used to – slowing down the hands.
“And obviously the speed is a lot higher on the road courses but overall, it was good to get a feeling and a taste for what these things can do.”
Herta enjoyed the challenge and was able to see some ways the Formula 1 cars are finetuned during his two days in Portugal.
“We were able to go through a lot of different things, a lot of different balance changes mechanically and aerodynamically with the car,” added Herta. “And then inside the car itself, I got to play with all the tools, diff settings and all that sort of stuff.
“It was pretty cool to see the balance changes and what you can do with the car just from inside the car, which was quite a bit more than what we are able to do in IndyCar… If you have a problem in one corner, you can adjust it at the flick of a finger.”
