Colton Herta is a very talented racing driver, who at the age of 22 has already competed four full seasons of IndyCar racing.
The American was heavily linked to a move to Formula 1 to race for AlphaTauri this season to replace Pierre Gasly, who has move to Alpine to partner Esteban Ocon.
The problem for Herta however was very similar to the one faced by Logan Sargeant, who has joined Williams to replace Nicholas Latifi.
Unfortunately for the two Americans, they did not have enough super licence points to be able to compete in Formula 1 and while Sargeant had a way to gather enough points, Herta did not.
READ: Ferrari warned that Charles Leclerc deserves better
Drivers can accumulate these points by taking part in F1 practice sessions, which Sargeant did with Williams, and by taking part in other racing series.
Sargeant was part of last year’s F2 championship and his final championship position scored him enough points to enter F1, however Herta was blocked by the FIA from taking part in a junior series as he attempted to up his points total.
Race director of the US Formula 3 and Formula 4 championships Scott Goodyear has revealed that he tried to enter Herta in last season’s F3 championship, which would allowed him to score some valuable super licence points.
“We offer super licence points to the drivers competing in our series and, if you win the F3/F4/Formula Regional in this country, you’re awarded more points than you are if you win the Indy Lights championship,” he explained to the Racer to Racer podcast.
“It’s interesting because Byran Herta [Colton’s father] called me in July. He wanted to see if we could get Colton to run in our F3 series because he needed to gain more super licence points.
READ: ‘Leaving the room with white smoke’: Toto Wolff on Lewis Hamilton’s new contract
“We were approving it, but he couldn’t get clearance from the FIA to be able to run that and [for him to] be given an opportunity to collect some points.”
After a potential move to sign the American broke down for AlphaTauri, the team quickly set their sights of prying the star of Monza, Nyck de Vries, away from Mercedes.
The Silver Arrows were very cooperative in letting their reserve driver join Red Bull’s sister team, telling reporters that they did not want to stand in the way of their driver’s dream of a full time race seat, which he had earned.