Colton Herta could have made it to F1 instead of Logan Sargeant! Here's how the FIA bungled the American's chances

Colton Herta's path to accruing F1 super license points was thwarted by the FIA and hence stopped his route to the sport. The American driver was one of the hottest commodities in the F1 driver market last season and was initially linked with a seat at McLaren (that went to Oscar Piastri), Alpine, and AlphaTauri.

Red Bull chief advisor Helmut Marko had publicly expressed interest in Herta but hinted that his team would only sign the American driver if he had a super license.

Since Colton Herta has been driving in IndyCar all this time and the series does not provide points as easily as the F2 and F3 series do, the American driver needed to accrue a few more to be eligible for the super license. However, once it became clear that a super license was out of the picture, Red Bull did not pursue the American driver.

As it turns out, it has been revealed that Herta tried to secure a few additional points by taking part in some of America’s lower categories, That move was thwarted by the FIA as revealed by Scott Goodyear, former IndyCar driver and the current Race Director for the US Formula 4 and Formula 3 Championships.

In an interview with the Racer to Racer podcast, Goodyear explained:

“He [Bryon Herta, Colton’s father] called me in July just before Toronto, and wanted to see if we could get Colton to come in and run in our series. [He wanted to race] Because he needed more Super License points. And we were approving it from a series perspective, and our management group approved it. But he couldn’t get clearance from the FIA to be able to run that and be given an opportunity to run in the series and collect some [Super License] points.”

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There is still a path open for Colton Herta to join F1

For Colton Herta, there is still an opportunity that could land him in F1. This opportunity, in all likelihood, will come from his employer in IndyCar, Andretti Motorsport. Michael Andretti has been very vocal about the talents of the American driver and has made it clear that Herta will be in one of the seats when the team makes it to F1.

All that, however, depends upon Andretti's chances of entry into F1 as there's still a lack of clarity over the matter. Should the team make it to F1, Herta could be one of the drivers in the cockpit.