Colton Herta Definitely Wants To Race In The Indy 500 Next Year

Colton Herta has a busy schedule next year.

It starts with a guest appearance in the Rolex 24 at Daytona with Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing, then shifts to his two full-time jobs with the Cadillac Formula 1 Team and Hitec GP.

He’ll be test driving for Cadillac’s inaugural season in F1 while also competing in the full Formula 2 season for Hitec, with an aim at stepping up to F1 when a seat opens up on the team.

But even with all of that on his plate, plus two more IMSA races at Sebring and Road Atlanta, he has one big hole in his schedule that he’s looking to fill.

Formula 2 takes off for the month of May, which opens the door to him visiting his old stomping grounds at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Indy 500.

“I’m available,” Herta said during an exclusive appearance on The GAS podcast with his IMSA teammate, Jordan Taylor.

“I would love to be able to race in Indy again this year in the Indy 500,” he said. “What an amazing race and really a privilege to be able to do it for the last seven years.” Herta has two top 10 finishes in the Indy 500, the last a ninth-place result in 2023.

Grabbing a spare car from his old team at Andretti Global might be tough, even though it has shared ownership with the Cadillac Formula 1 Team. That’s because Andretti runs Honda engines and Herta is now very much a General Motors driver, so he’d likely need to find an open seat with a Chevy-powered IndyCar team.

If one doesn’t materialize, he might end up watching The Greatest Spectacle in Racing from Montreal, where Formula 1 has a race on the same day. The series typically races in Monaco on the day of the Indy 500, but decided to move it to the week after the Miami Grand Prix to save the teams from having to make two intercontinental trips.

Despite how popular it is, Formula 1 knows it can’t compete with the world’s biggest race and moved the start time of the Canadian Grand Prix from the originally planned 2 p.m. EDT to 4 p.m. EDT, in order to avoid a conflict with the Indy 500, which starts at 12:45 p.m. EDT and should have a winner by 4 p.m., if all goes well. Racing fans can then watch the F1 race before switching over to NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 at 6 p.m. to wrap up what’s become known as Racing Christmas.

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