ALL REVVED UP
Defending champion Josef Newgarden tops qualifying for Honda Indy
Josef Newgarden celebrates Saturday after qualifying on the pole for today’s Honda Indy. Coverage begins on S1
There is an ease to the way George Steinbrenner IV and Colton Herta interact and it’s one of the reasons behind the rapid rise of the Steinbrenner Racing team, which entered Honda Indy Toronto weekend as a favourite in the Indy Lights races at Exhibition Place.
The 22-year-old grandson of legendary New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner teamed up with the 18year-old son of former IndyCar star Bryan Herta to form one of the youngest and winningest teams on the circuit, one rung below IndyCar. In just their second full season, they led the series points standings heading into Saturday’s first of two races and Herta qualified fastest, but suffered a hairline thumb fracture during the session after his car slid into a concrete barrier wall. Miss the race? Not a chance.
Herta was running second on the 15th of 35 laps, but on lap 22 his car slammed into a wall coming out of turn nine.
“We qualified on the pole, and I got hit (from behind) ... and that’s why we fell back so quickly,” said Herta. “We were so quick … but this is such a (bumpy street course), eventually there’s only so much I can do. It was my turn. I hit a bump and it ripped the steering wheel out of my hands. All I could do is go into the wall.”
He was expected to be healthy enough to take another crack in Sunday’s second Indy Lights race, pending another medical evaluation.
Win or lose in Toronto, they’re focused on this season’s title.
Should they bag it, it will almost certainly lead to a spot in the IndyCar series in 2019. They have won four of the last seven races, a run of success that has its roots as far back as four years ago, when Steinbrenner, then 16, watched a 12-year-old Herta drive at the Skip Barber Racing School.
“I just thought right there that this was the right place (and driver) for me to start having success,” the business-minded Steinbrenner said.
Relaxing in the Andretti Motorsports hospitality tent on the eve of the opening race, he said auto racing — not driving — is in his blood.
“I wasn’t brave enough,” Steinbrenner said honestly when asked if he’d ever entertained getting behind the wheel of a race car, “even to step into a go-kart. By the time I got brave enough, my interest had turned towards the business side of racing.”
He left college to start the team, something his parents warmed to after they witnessed his rapid success.
Dad Hank Steinbrenner had divorced in 2004, and the split meant that his son would spend some time with stepfather Sean Jones, who happened to coown a rally cross team with Bryan Herta.
While the family name is synonymous with baseball, Steinbrenner’s dad also used to own an NHRA drag racing team. Also, uncle Chris Simmons is the chief engineer for IndyCar driver Scott Dixon, and late Indy driver Tony Renna — killed in a 2003 crash — was a cousin.
Part of his expertise is in finding crucial sponsorship and Steinbrenner, just out of his teens, landed valuable deals with Seven Corners Insurance and Bondurant Racing School. The team’s principal sponsor, though, remains a Canadian renewable energy company: the Deltro Energy Group, which had previous affiliations with Herta’s dad.
“They wanted to sponsor us, two young kids, and we loved their company being about renewable energy,” Steinbrenner said.
He credited his grandfather, known as The Boss, for imparting an “insatiable hunger for winning. Building a winning program, doing the best you can to build a winning program, no matter what, was one of the most important things he passed on to me.”
Herta, meanwhile, recalls how nervous he was when his dad first placed him in a race car — at age 5 in Fast Lane Racing School at Willow Springs Raceway, just outside the family’s Los Angeles home.
“I played soccer when I was young, I played baseball, but I didn’t like any of it … I got stuck with racing, but it’s all I ever wanted to do,” he said.
“There was no pressure … (dad Bryan is) just happy with the success I’ve had. At first, it was like anything else when you’re young — you don’t want to listen to what your dad has to say — but you mature a lot, and now I realize he’s pretty smart.”
Back in the hospitality suite, Steinbrenner and Herta appeared almost too young to be the driving force behind what could be IndyCar’s next team. But they’re fast learners, down to the finest details.
“Our helmets used to have a rubber glaze around the side and metal bolts on the side … they stripped them off to save 20 grams of weight,” Herta said.
Those lessons have helped the young guns smooth out the learning curve.
“I just think we listen to each other: me on the racing side and George on the business side,” said Herta. “It’s been a lot of fun.”