The FIA has now announced that Colton Herta is officially ineligible for a super licence. With that, the chance of a seat in F1 has then passed him by for the time being. The American was in the picture at AlphaTauri for a seat for the 2023 season, but the Faenza-based team earlier threw in the towel in the battle for licence points.

The discussion around super licence points came to a head when it was announced that Herta was on the list to replace Pierre Gasly at AlphaTauri. The Frenchman would then in turn go to Alpine as Fernando Alonso's replacement. For now, it remains to be seen Gasly. Helmut Marko previously indicated that Gasly could only leave if a good replacement was available. This all depended on whether Herta would get the super licence or not. Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko said last week that AlphaTauri had put a line under Herta's arrival because it was all taking too long to get clarity. So now the FIA has finally given that clarity.

A spokesperson for the FIA came out with the following statement:"The FIA confirms that enquiries have been made through the appropriate channels and that the FIA has confirmed that driver Colton Herta does not have the required number of points to obtain an FIA Superlicence. The FIA is constantly reviewing its regulations and procedures, including with regard to eligibility for a Superlicence, with the key factors regarding this issue being safety, experience and performance in the track context."

De Vries

These developments are again good news for De Vries, who can now therefore add AlphaTauri to his list of interested teams in addition to Alpine and Williams. Last week, De Vries already revealed that he had spoken to Helmut Marko. The main thing now would be to wait for the definite moment that Gasly goes to Alpine. So with Herta, there is now officially one less competitor, and the American's name can also be ticked off by Alpine.