Colton Herta’s 2026 isn’t really about a rookie season in Formula 2. It’s about Cadillac putting a structure around a long-running idea — Herta in Formula 1 — and, crucially, deciding what “good enough” looks like before the year even starts.
Cadillac F1 CEO Dan Towriss has set Herta a clear benchmark for his first full European campaign: finish inside the top 10 in the F2 championship. On paper, that reads almost conservative for an IndyCar race winner who didn’t cross the Atlantic to blend into the midfield. In reality, it’s a very deliberate bit of expectation management from a programme that’s trying to build an F1-ready driver without pretending F2 is a straight-line conversion from what Herta has been doing in the US.
Towriss is framing Herta’s season less as a “go win the title” mission and more as a year of accumulation — knowledge, mileage, processes, and a feel for the ecosystem that F1 lives in. Tracks, tyres, operating windows, the rhythm of European race weekends: all the stuff that doesn’t show up in a highlights reel but will absolutely get exposed the first time you’re asked to jump into an F1 car on short notice.
“I really am looking for a top 10 finish from Colton in F2,” Towriss said. “Because, really, it’s about learning tracks and tyres and just, you know, his development to be ready for Formula 1.
“He’ll be spending time on the F1 sim. So it’s not just what happens in F2. There’ll be FP1s that he’ll be involved with, as well as sim work. And so we’ll look at the total body of work to judge his readiness for Formula 1.”
That “total body of work” line matters. Cadillac isn’t treating F2 as the only exam Herta has to pass — it’s one pillar of a broader 2026 plan that also includes simulator duties and FP1 running, plus a return to IMSA. In other words, his season is being built like a modern F1 development programme: fewer grand statements, more boxes to tick, more data to harvest.
And there’s a political subtext here too. Herta has already been the almost-man in the F1 conversation. He was on the radar during Michael Andretti’s push for an F1 entry via a Sauber takeover that never happened. Later, Red Bull looked in his direction with its junior team as a potential landing spot, only for the Super Licence points situation to get in the way. Those near-misses have left a mark on how his F1 prospects are discussed: part hype, part frustration, part “what if”.
So Cadillac is setting a target that’s achievable without being trivial, and — importantly — without forcing the whole season to be framed around a single number. If Herta is quick but inconsistent, if he’s learning but not always converting, a top-10 aim gives the team room to speak honestly about progress without having to justify a failed title chase. It lowers the volume, not the ambition.
Still, it’s hard to escape the feeling that “top 10” is the line you use when you’re protecting a driver as much as you’re challenging him.
F2 is a brutally efficient sorting mechanism. The cars are different to anything Herta has raced regularly, the tyre behaviour will punish old habits, and the culture is unapologetically European — not just in geography but in how the paddock operates, how weekends are managed, how reputations are made. Herta’s old Formula 3 experience is a long way in the rear-view mirror, and it’s unlikely to carry much practical value now beyond a general comfort with open-wheel racing on this side of the Atlantic.
Yes, the 2026 F2 grid is being talked up as a particularly strong field. And yes, it would be naive to expect a driver to arrive from IndyCar and instantly run the table. But Herta hasn’t uprooted his career to treat a top-10 finish as a victory lap. He’s here because he wants the one thing he can’t win in IndyCar: a credible, points-backed route into Formula 1.
That’s the other reason this target lands oddly at first glance. Super Licence points aren’t a side quest for Herta — they’re the main plot. Formula 2 offers the biggest points haul of any series on the feeder ladder and, as Towriss’ programme makes clear, it’s also the most legible proof-of-competence to an F1 paddock that still defaults to European benchmarks. Finish in the top three and you secure the 40 points needed for a Super Licence immediately. Towriss isn’t demanding that, at least publicly, but Herta will know exactly what it represents: the difference between being a reserve who tests and a driver who can be signed and raced without an asterisk.
So the tension heading into Herta’s season is baked in. Cadillac is selling the year as development, and that’s sensible — the team has simulator time and FP1 appearances in mind, and it wants to judge him on the full picture. But Herta’s own incentive structure is inevitably sharper. Development is nice. Leverage is better. If he wants to force open a door that’s shut on him before, he won’t do it by being “promising”.
A top-10 target might take heat out of the early weekends, but it won’t change what people will actually watch for: how quickly he adapts, how often he’s genuinely fast, and whether the weekends start to look like those of a driver who’s not just visiting Europe, but belongs there.
Because if Herta really is going to end up on an F1 grid, 2026 won’t be remembered for the soundbite about top 10. It’ll be remembered for the moments where he looked like he’d outgrown the category entirely.
