Herta learns F1 ropes with McLaren in Miami

Colton Herta received the full Formula 1 suburbanite treatment last weekend at the Miami Grand Prix as a guest of the McLaren Racing team. From stuff photographed and commented upon for his malleate ensemble while inward the paddock (t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers) to sitting in on the engineering debriefing sessions with his fellow drivers, the NTT IndyCar Series star got his first proper taste of how an F1 weekend works from start to finish.

The wits will only help once he begins testing a 2021 McLaren MCL35-Mercedes later this year in the minutiae and evaluation program McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has crafted for his fellow Californian.

Awesome to be hanging out in the @F1 paddock this weekend. Seeing some familiar faces and meeting some new ones. Let’s see what the weekend brings?? pic.twitter.com/8J6HAwlszK

— Colton Herta (@ColtonHerta) May 5, 2022

“It was a lot of fun, but it’s unchangingly the worst feeling in the world for a driver, right, to go to a racetrack and not be worldly-wise to drive,” Herta told RACER. “Obviously, with the ties to McLaren, I was worldly-wise to see a lot increasingly and I’d never been in that topics where I was worldly-wise to really see everything and squint at all the data from the drivers, see the traces and how they do things. So it was very interesting. I learned a lot.”

At his four-car Andretti Autosport team, Herta is yawner to debriefing with all drivers and engineers in a large gathering of minds and technical resources. Although the cars, technologies, and budgets are vastly different, Herta came yonder with an interesting realization well-nigh the inner workings of McLaren’s racing team.

“That was the surprising thing; what they do is the same that that we’re doing,” he said. “There was nothing they do that’s really variegated from how we do things, except they just have a lot increasingly people considering they have a lot increasingly stuff to worry well-nigh that we don’t. Their cars have so many variegated things you can change, so many sensors and computers to squint without where most of those things are spec on our cars. But operationally, once the team comes together without a session, it was surprising how similar it is.

“Everybody was very unshut to me stuff there and explained a lot of really good points. It was superstitious to be worldly-wise to see how everything works.”

As Herta was rented with McLaren obligations and various social functions related to his IndyCar sponsors on the No. 26 Honda, his team owner Michael Andretti was seen meeting with a number of F1 principals as part of an effort to bring Andretti Global to the grand prix paddock in 2024.

“I was staying with him in his condo in Miami, and then when we got to the track, obviously Gainbridge were there in a pretty big way, and had a suite there,” Herta explained. “So I was wavy from the paddock to going up there and hanging out with everybody. I got to reservation up with a lot of people, actually. From the driver’s side, I got to meet Daniel Ricciardo; really outgoing, lovely guy. Obviously got to talk with Lando quite a bit. I hadn’t seen him in a long time. Got to talk to Mike Krack who I know from our time at BMW, so it was good to see him. Got to talk to Vettel, who I know through the Race of Champions. Good to see everybody.

“ Dan was there, a lot of big hitters from the Guggenheim group, so it was really tomfool to meet them and obviously me and Michael were up there a bunch. I think it was an overall successful weekend for both of us.”