Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Colton Herta is encouraged by the “pretty big progression” he believes he has made so far in Formula 2 ahead of the championship’s unexpected visit to Miami.
The opening round in Melbourne proved an eye-opening experience for the former IndyCar driver: a crash in practice followed by a poor qualifying which saw him outqualified by Hitech team-mate Ritomo Miyata, was topped off with a pointless sprint race, concluding a challenging opening few days for the American. However, a resurgent drive up the field in the feature race landed Herta a seventh place finish.
“It’s been enjoyable so far,” said Herta to the F2 website ahead of the Miami event. “I’ve been having fun with it.
“The IndyCar, you get lap time out of it, and you can be very forceful with your inputs, with your feet and your hands. Whereas F2, you kind of have to massage it a little bit more, you have to be a little bit more delicate with it.
“The way you get lap time out of the two are not similar. So I think there’s been a little bit of a learning curve with that.
“I think the biggest thing is just understanding the tyres. When I first got into the car, it was quite difficult to maximise lap time out of it and I was looking for lap time in probably the wrong places.
“So that’s kind of where the biggest growth has been, is understanding the tyres and how it likes to be worked. And I think going forward, it’s still something that I’m still not quite exactly where I want to be at with it.
“But, I’m making pretty big progression from the first day in the car until now. So I’m happy about that.”
Following the cancelation of the grands prix in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, F2 opted to replace them with a trip to North America, with Miami and Montreal playing host to rounds two and three respectively.
With both circuits making their debut on the F2 calendar, all drivers start on equal footing with knowledge of the track limited, something Herta is looking to capitalise on.
“I think it’s not going to hurt. I think everybody’s pretty gifted in this series, so I don’t think it’s going to be a difficult thing to get up to speed for them.
“But, I think it’s definitely going to be more advantageous to me than maybe a place like Melbourne, where a lot of those guys have been to before, whether in F3 or F2. So yeah, I think it will probably be a little bit better for me.”