Interview
Herta taking the positives despite ‘unsatisfactory’ weekend in Melbourne
Colton Herta is taking the positives from his fightback to the points in the Melbourne Feature Race – although he was left frustrated by mistakes that he felt put him on the back foot.
The Hitech driver’s weekend got off to a difficult start when he crashed in Friday’s Free Practice, and while he did return to the track for Qualifying later that day, he was disappointed to end up in P14.
After ending the Sprint in 17th, Herta was in fine form on Sunday, as he fought through the field to finish seventh in the Feature Race.
But while the American driver was happy to have scored his first points in F2, he was not completely satisfied with his performance at Albert Park.
“C minus. Unsatisfactory,” said Herta on his Melbourne showing. “It was okay. It could have been a lot better without some pretty obvious mistakes. I guess the only positive is that we scored points today and the guys did a great job.
“They did a great job putting the car back together after Practice, they did a great job in the pits, I thought the setup was also very nice, and I thought the pitstops and strategy were great.
“So I think that just leads to not being happy with the Friday. It’s unacceptable to crash in Practice at anytime, but especially at a track that I've never been to when basically everybody on the grid has.
“I'm already fighting an upward battle and that just didn't do me any favours. I need to complete all the laps and do as much as I can in the driver’s seat to learn. I didn't do myself any favours so that set us up for failure to be honest the rest of the weekend.
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“But still, I think there are a lot of positives about our fight back. The guys should be happy with their effort this weekend. But for me, I'm not particularly happy about it.”
Part of Herta’s frustration came from missing out on a place within the top 10. His fastest time in Qualifying was a 1:29.765 which was 0.224s of Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak in 10th.
Moving forward, Herta wants to make a spot in the top 10 a regular occurrence, aiming to set himself up with better starting positions for both races.
“Qualifying in F2, your goal needs to be, at a bare minimum, to qualify in the top ten,” he said. “So you're in position to score points in both the Sprint and the Feature, which I failed to do.
“Now, I think there is a possibility of points in both races if you do things perfectly from where I started. But we didn't do things perfectly. So there's plenty to reflect on from my side, and for me to do better. Which is nice.
“You just have to keep pushing and trying. I understood the challenges I had when I was trying this. I knew it wasn't going to be easy, especially at a place like this.
“This is probably going to be one of the tougher ones. It’s the first race weekend, and I have never driven here. So there is a lot of new stuff, but I think the more time I get in the car, the more natural it's going to be, and it's just not natural yet.”
Herta though does like that neither he nor Hitech are satisfied with finishing seventh.
While the Cadillac-backed driver appreciates the result given the context of the weekend, he knows there is a lot more potential in both him and the team.
“It's a good thing to take forward for the rest of the rounds,” said Herta on the result. “Like I said, I'm happy about some of the stuff. But most of the stuff, I'm not.
“But that's good. There's plenty of stuff to learn from and be better, and I like that we as a team are not happy or satisfied with seventh, because we shouldn't be.”