Colton Herta: My Ultimate Driver

Colton Herta chose between a few motorsport icons when building his ultimate racing driver

Hitech’s Colton Herta recently took on the task of building his ultimate racing driver and it is fair to say there are some motorsport legends on his list.

From Indy500 winners and multiple-time Formula 1 world champions, it is a list that is hard to argue against…

INTELLIGENCE

“I'm going to pick Dario Franchitti for that. He's a very smart guy, from what I've seen.”

DRIVING IN THE WET

“I'd say Max Verstappen. I think a lot of people think of Brazil, even though Lewis was very strong in that race also. But I think he's just very high commitment. He tends to work more in the wet and you get more in the wet to his talent.”

BEST QUALIFIER

“The best qualifier? I would go Prime Will Power.”

Herta feels the wet shows up Max Verstappen's talent even more

CORNERING

“I think there's a thousand ways to interpret that question. At Indy, James Hinchcliffe is one of the smoothest drivers in the world, as far as how well he approaches it with both his pedals and his hands.

“I'll say James for that one, just because of how meticulous he is. He always turns in at a similar point, but he's always very smooth and calculated. He has a very fine art around driving around Indy from what I've seen, so I will go with him.”

TYRE MANAGEMENT

“I don't have a great answer for that one, to be honest. There was a GT race that I did when I was with BMW in the M8. My teammate was Philipp Eng and he was good.

“But if I’ve got to choose somebody in F1, I think, just because of the Pirellis, we will go with Lewis Hamilton. He seems smooth. He had that one race in Monaco where he did like 900 laps on a set of tyres.

BRAVEST/BIGGEST RISKTAKER

Can I choose myself? I'll go for myself on that one.

Herta identified the smooth driving style of James Hinchcliffe

SMOOTHEST

“James Hinchcliffe, there you go.”

BEST OVERTAKER?

“I'm going myself again for that one.”

ANYTHING ELSE TO ADD?

“I think maybe awareness or mindfulness. Somebody who can be super calm, clear and concise inside the car. I'll put my old teammate, Kyle Kirkwood, for that.

“I think he's very good at that. Staying level-headed and always trying to maximise the day. But there's plenty of drivers that are very strong at that too.”

Next Up