By 
Cadillac Formula 1 team principal Graeme Lowdon says Colton Herta is “learning an awful lot” and “ticking off the objectives”, amid a tricky debut in Formula 2.
IndyCar frontrunner Herta made a shock switch to F2 for the 2026 season in order to pursue his F1 dream, with Cadillac throwing him a lifeline as a test and development driver.
Herta’s main goal is to gain experience in European-style racing, notably the tricky Pirelli rubber used by F1 and its feeder series, ahead of a potential graduation to the world championship – so Cadillac team CEO Dan Towriss is merely looking for a top-10 finish in the F2 standings.
But, at the time of writing, the Hitech driver is down in 12th in the championship, having taken three lower-points finishes in the opening three rounds of the season – all three coming in feature races.
Qualifying in particular has been difficult, with Herta successively qualifying 14th, 14th, 19th and 14th again in Melbourne, Miami, Montreal and Monaco – despite one-lap pace having been his forte in IndyCar, with 15 pole positions on road courses.
Colton Herta, Hitech GP
Photo by: Dom Gibbons / Formula 1 via Getty Images
“Something that I think is really important to mention with Colton is, when he decided to go into F2, he had no illusions that it would be difficult,” Lowdon pointed out, speaking before Monaco qualifying. “I remember the conversation I had with him, he was under no illusion how difficult it is. There’s new tracks, new tyres, new approach, new everything.
“So I get the fact that you’re saying that he might be having a difficult time, but I think the approach that he had was he knew that everyone was going to be fast. He wasn’t going in there with an unrealistic expectation that he’d blow everyone away.
“He went into F2 with a specific objective in mind, which was acclimatisation – learn how these tyres work, learn how the race weekends work, learn locations, learn the tracks. And you can’t do that away from the spotlight, so you have to be under that spotlight as well.
“He’s a racing driver, so for sure he wants to be fighting for podium positions – first, second, third, or whatever. But he’s ticking off the objectives as it goes. He’s learning an awful lot along the way.
“It’s quite right, from the outside you can look at it and say, ‘Well, that looked like a tough qualifier and that was a tough race’. I look at it really very differently,” he insisted. “For sure, he’s always going to want to be more competitive. That’s just in the DNA of a race driver, isn’t it?
“But there’s a lot that’s being ticked off the wishlist along the way as well. I really like the fact that he’s taken the challenge on. That’s what a proper racing driver would do, in my view. So, hats off to him.”
Colton Herta, Hitech GP
Photo by: Dom Gibbons / Formula 1 via Getty Images
In recent history, Oliver Bearman graduated to the world championship despite finishing a lowly 12th in his sophomore F2 season, having proven his potential in his F1 outings – and Herta has an opportunity to emulate the Haas driver, on Cadillac’s simulator and in Free Practice 1 sessions.
“When we’re asking drivers to do FP1 sessions, from our point of view, we measure it largely against, ‘What is the driver being asked to do and what have they actually done?’,” Lowdon explained.
“I’ve seen it before where drivers have gone completely off-piste. Not so much in [F1], but definitely my experience in endurance racing, where you ask a driver to do something, they go and do something else entirely, because there’s much more freedom there to take a car in a certain direction or to do something completely different. And that just drives you nuts, because that’s not how it works.
“The FP1 session in particular, it’s so limited the amount of time that we’ve got to study these cars, and especially when everything is brand-new. And I mean, like, every screwdriver and spanner in that garage is brand-new, let alone a race car.
“Having drivers who can execute clean sessions is really, really important in terms of, ‘This is what we want you to do on this run, on this lap even, or even this section of a lap.’ That’s actually way more important at the minute than where someone is on a timesheet in FP1.”
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
– The Motorsport.com Team
Share Or Save This Story
Formula 2 and Formula 3 reveal new logos mid-season