Cadillac judges Herta on F1 work, not F2 results

Cadillac says Colton Herta’s case for a future Formula 1 seat will be judged primarily on the work he is doing inside its F1 program, not on a modest Formula 2 campaign with Hitech.

TWG Motorsports CEO Dan Towriss said Herta’s path is being assessed through simulator work, time in the garage, training in Formula 1 machinery and his free practice appearances, with Formula 2 serving mainly as a way to learn the circuits on the 2026 calendar. Herta left IndyCar at the end of 2025 to become Cadillac’s test driver while also taking on an F2 season with Hitech.

That matters because Herta’s results in F2 have been underwhelming on paper. GrandPrix.om reported that at the halfway point of the 2026 season he has 20 points and sits 17th in the drivers’ championship out of 22 competitors. Hitech teammate Rihito Miyata has 30 points and is 11th.

Towriss said those numbers are not the main metric. “For Colton it was all about learning, coming here learning tracks, tyres and that certainly is happening,” Towriss said in comments quoted by RACER. He added that “there've been some bumps in the road with the team, things haven't gone from a result standpoint as good as we would have hoped but I think that's to be expected and kind of just the way Formula 2 works, and bluntly where Hitech is at this point.”

Cadillac is placing more weight on what Herta has shown directly in F1. His first practice appearance came earlier this season at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, and Towriss said he “did everything that the team asked of him” in that session. Herta is due back in current F1 machinery for another FP1 outing in Hungary, with two more practice appearances scheduled for 2026.

Towriss said that broader body of work is what Cadillac needs to see as it measures Herta’s readiness. “We’ll have another one coming up in Hungary and so we’ll just continue to build that body of work that’s necessary to show his readiness for Formula 1,” he said.