IT’S ALL IN THE GENES FOR THE HERTAS

Colton Herta was just five years old when Andretti Autosport – or Andretti Green Racing, as it was called then – last swept the podium. On that occasion, it was the 2005 Grand Prix of St Petersburg, with Dan Wheldon beating Tony Kanaan and Dario Franchitti. In fact, it was better than that, for AGR scored a 1-2-3-4 on that day, and the fourth-placed man was Herta’s father Bryan (below), who had started from pole position.

Even though Herta Jr finished third and second in his Indy Lights years, whereas his dad clinched that title in spectacular fashion in 1993, it now seems certain that the younger Herta will eclipse his father’s racing record. With 29 Indycar races under his wheels, he has won three of them; Bryan made 179 starts across CART and Indy Racing League and won four.

There is one major difference, however: in only one season of CART did Herta Sr have the ‘right’ combination of chassis, engine and tyres. Then, after switching to the predominantly oval IRL in 2003, his silky smooth road-course skills went largely to waste, and he was way too smart to truly thrive in the foot-pinned-to-the-bulkhead/zeroimagination world of pack racing.

Herta Jr, by contrast, has arrived at the top of US open-wheel racing in an era when the cars are almost spec, the differentiation between them – beyond two engines of very similar horsepower and torque outputs – being primarily defined by the driver and the team.

With victory in Mid-ohio and consistency elsewhere, Herta seems certain to finish the season as Andretti Autosport’s highest-placed driver in the championship. Once the team is firing on all cylinders once more, there’s no doubt that Herta will be a title contender.