Herta’s Win Makes History At COTA

First Time; First Track

Colton Herta became the youngest driver to win an Indy car event when he took the checkered flag on Sunday. As it happened, the first win, was also the first event at Circuit Of The Americas (COTA). Herta’s win was the beneficiary of a full-course caution period, and ended up leading the final 15 laps to win by 2.7182 seconds over Josef Newgarden.

Sunday’s race was just the third in the NTT IndyCar Series for Herta, who finished second in the 2018 Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires championship before moving up to Harding Steinbrenner Racing this year. Herta was humbled to join the list of Indy car race winners that includes his father, Bryan, who won four times in a 12-year Indy car career and is now co-owner and race strategist for the car driven by Marco Andretti.

“Just to be up with the names of people that have won (a) race, I’m going to live and die an Indy car winner, which is spectacular in itself,” Herta said. “Yeah, it’s a great record at a young age. To be standing up here kind of feels surreal. We were not expecting (to win). I think we were going to get a podium (top-three finish) – I think we had the pace for that – but holy crap, man! … It’s spectacular!”

Aggressive Patience Pays Off