Colton Herta's F1 Super Licence plight makes Lando Norris cast doubts over FIA's IndyCar points weightage

Lando Norris has come out in support of Colton Herta and IndyCar to question the FIA's Super Licence points system. The FIA awards fewer points to non-FIA-governed series, like IndyCar, than those under its governance, like the European Formula ladder from F4 to F2.

For instance, the Top 3 finishers in the IndyCar standings at the end of the season get 40, 30, and 20 points, whereas the Top 3 in Formula 2, the junior series to F1, are all awarded 40 points, which is required to earn a Super Licence and be eligible for an F1 seat.

Colton Herta, despite being one of IndyCar's top performers, couldn't gather the 40 points over any three-year period preceding a potential F1 entry. To fulfil his lifelong F1 dream, the Andretti Global driver had to leave IndyCar after the 2025 season to join its sister team, Cadillac F1, as a test driver. However, he would still need to race in Formula 2 in 2026, which is objectively inferior to IndyCar, but its drivers earn more points than their IndyCar counterparts for an FIA Super Licence.

McLaren driver Lando Norris, who raced against Colton Herta during their junior racing career in Europe, recently questioned the FIA's points-awarding system. When speaking about Herta's capability and the IndyCar vs F2 argument, Norris said (via RACER):

"It's not my decision. I think he's probably capable of driving a Formula 1 car and driving it at an incredibly high level. He’s probably better than most other drivers that are in the ranks and coming up in F3 and F2 and stuff. So, I don't think [he should need to race in F2] if I was the boss."

The Briton, who is a championship contender in 2025, clearly highlighted the superiority of IndyCar drivers over F2 drivers, adding:

"I think there's still a certain allowance of, you have to qualify in some way. I don't think you can just be an old billy and just pay to get into Formula 1, but IndyCar, I think, is one of the toughest series in the world. I think it's an incredibly tough car to drive. I’ve never driven it myself, but you can tell all of those things, and the level of all these drivers is incredibly high. I don't know how many points they get in IndyCar, but I would put it above the level of Formula 2 in a way."

Colton Herta and Lando Norris were teammates at Carlin in the 2015 MSA Formula Championship. Norris emerged as the champion at the end of the season with 10 poles and eight race wins, while Herta finished third in the championship, with three poles and four wins.

The tale of Lando Norris' hilarious nickname for Colton Herta, aka "Hooligan Herta"

In 2022, Colton Herta joined McLaren as a development driver for its F1 team while racing in IndyCar with Andretti Global. In July that year, he would test the Woking-based team's 2021 challenger, the MCL35M, over a two-day test at the Portimao circuit in Portugal.

In the lead-up to the test, Lando Norris had spoken about his relationship with Herta and shared an interesting anecdote about how he called the American driver a "hooligan", all in good spirits.

"His nickname is Hooligan Herta because there’s one place he was extremely strong, and that’s high-speed corners," Norris said via The Race in May 2022. "And I feel like one of my strengths is pretty high-speed corners. But he was just like another level in some sorts.

He would quite often go off because of it and maybe not crash, but just go through the gravel, and we’d have to clean his car after because of how much dirt there was on it. A lovely guy, of course. But I grew up with him when I was younger for a good year and a half, two years. And he’s just a bit crazy. A bit of a hooligan," Norris added.

Colton Herta and Lando Norris will share the F1 paddock as rivals in 2026. The former could be a strong contender for one of the Cadillac F1 seats in 2027 or later, based on how the driver lineup of Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas performs in 2026.