Cadillac announce unusual plan for Colton Herta after quitting IndyCar

Cadillac have confirmed that Colton Herta will be racing in an F1 feeder series in 2026, having quit IndyCar to attempt to crack the world's leading open-wheel series.

Herta announced his departure from Andretti and the IndyCar world on Wednesday, just days after finishing seventh in the 2025 season, a significant fall-off from last year's second place.

The team announced last week that Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas will be their primary drivers for their debut season in 2026, meaning that there is only room for Herta as a test driver.

As it happens, that's for the best – with Herta lacking the FIA Superlicence points to take a seat in F1 as things stand, thanks to the relatively paltry allocation given to IndyCar drivers.

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Cadillac CEO reveals Herta plans

As such, Herta will be taking a seat in F2 for 2026 in order to develop his racecraft and hopefully hoover up enough points to step up to F1 when a seat becomes available.

Speaking on the Off Track With Hinch and Rossi podcast, Cadillac F1 CEO Dan Towriss said: “We’ve been fortunate to keep Colton at Andretti in the IndyCar team so now, he’s going to pursue that dream in Formula 1. So to do that, he’s going to take a pretty big risk.

“He’s leaving IndyCar, he’s not going directly to Formula 1, this is a test and development driver role and so he’s going to be going into F2.

“He’s got to learn tracks, he’s got to learn tyres, tyres are a big part of that, very different from IndyCar from that standpoint. I just couldn’t be more proud of Colton to be willing to take that risk to pursue his dream.”

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