Blow for Colton Herta's F1 prospects as Cadillac shares driver preference

In a blow to Colton Herta, Cadillac has made it clear that the F1 driver choice for the team will entirely depend on merit and not on nationality. The American driver has been at the periphery of the sport in the last few seasons. He was one of the contenders that Helmut Marko was looking at when trying to find a replacement for Pierre Gasly in 2022.

Since then, Colton Herta's performances in IndyCar have been decent. He finished the 2024 season as a runner-up with Andretti, and it was one of Michael Andretti's wishes that he wanted to see the American as one of the drivers should the team make it to the F1 grid. Well, the team has made it to the grid, albeit in a different guise and leadership.

Unfortunately for Colton Herta, it seems that the enthusiasm for signing him is maybe not the same for Cadillac boss Graeme Lowdon. During the F1 Miami GP, Lowdon, who also manages Guanyu Zhou's career, was questioned if the American driver would be given a preference, to which he declined any such suggestion. He told Sky Sports,

"I think everyone would love to see an American driver in an American team with an American engine at some stage. But, also, this is a world championship, we have to select everyone on merit and, as we've said before, there's nothing stopping a girl or boy with an American passport driving for an American Formula 1 team."

He added,

"We will select on merit. If the driver happens to be an American, then I think it's something the fans would really like, but this is a world championship, we've got to respect it, and we want to be as competitive as we can. So we choose everyone in the team on merit."

This does serve as a blow to Herta because his 2025 IndyCar season has been far from brilliant. The American has not had a great start, although a lot of it has been down to the team's operational errors. The results unfortunately don't make him an automatic choice, and that is going to play a major role in taking a final call at Cadillac.

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Cadillac's update on hiring F1 drivers for 2026

There have been quite a few names that have been attached with Cadillac since the team has started looking for prospects. One of them is Mick Schumacher. The German was in the F1 paddock during the Miami GP and was reported to have met Lowdon as well during the weekend. Other than him, names like Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas have also been touted as some of the more experienced ones.

Talking about the prospective names that Cadillac is looking at, Lowdon told Sky Sports,

"We've narrowed it down quite a bit. But we're out of sync with the rest of the teams at the moment. We were effectively kept out of the last round of driver discussions because we didn't have an entry so we're in a slightly unusual position. But it also means there's a lot less competitive tension and we can take a little bit of time."

He added,

"Quite obviously, the number one priority for us as a team is to have something for the driver to drive and that is where a lot of the management bandwidth is focused."

Cadillac's F1 debut will be in 2026, and the squad is going to take a lot of parts from Haas in the beginning, in a model similar to what Haas has. The American team will be the 11th contender on the grid, and all eyes will be on the squad to see how it fares in its first year.