Herta hopes F1 test 'will open doors': 'Is high on my list'

With three Grands Prix in the United States, the country is only waiting for its own Formula One star. Someone for whom this may be on the horizon is IndyCar driver Colton Herta, who will soon be making his first meters in McLaren's MCL35M.

Herta is already frequently linked with the second McLaren seat alongside Lando Norris from 2024, which would mean bad news for Daniel Ricciardo. The 22-year-old driver from Valencia, California, became the youngest winner in the IndyCar Series in 2019 and has since added five more victories.

Herta hopes F1 test will open doors at McLaren

Later this season, he will step into a Formula One car for the first time and will take his first test in the 2021 McLaren car. When the test will take place, he does not want to say on the F1 Nation-podcast yet, but he does reveal that a visit to the factory in Woking will take place in June to try on his seat.

In his own words, Formula One is something he "wants to be able to say he's done. "It's a serious ambition of mine," says Herta, who has quite an ambitious bucket list. "I wanted to go to IndyCar, I wanted to go to the Indy 500 and of course I still want to win the Indy 500."

So Formula One is also high on that list. "There's a long list of different races, events and series that I want to be a part of, and Formula One is definitely higher on the list than a lot of other things," concludes Herta, who hopes his test will "open doors" at McLaren's F1 team.