Formula 1 team bosses’ reluctance to back a move which would ease Colton Herta’s entry into the series has been met with criticism by American drivers racing in IndyCar.
Herta, who became IndyCar’s youngest-ever race winner in 2019 at the age of 18, was linked with a move into F1 last year when his Andretti team attempted to buy Sauber, which runs Alfa Romeo. That deal failed to materialise, but Herta has again been connected to an F1 switch with Red Bull’s junior team AlphaTauri.
But despite winning seven IndyCar races over the past four seasons, Herta has not amassed the necessary 40 FIA superlicence points in order to qualify to compete in F1. The FIA awards a total of 124 points to the top 10 finishers in IndyCar which is far fewer than junior categories Formula 2 (201) and even Formula 3 (128).
In recent years the FIA adjusted the superlicence points rules in reaction to the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. However suggestions the FIA could adopt a similar approach in light of Herta’s situation and allow him a superlicence as a matter of “force majeure” were given short shrift by some team bosses today.
“From my point of view it has nothing to do with force majeure because you have championships everywhere in the world that you were able to score points,” said Alfa Romeo team principal Frederic Vasseur.
“If the FIA want to stop the process of the points and the superlicence it’s another story. But they can do it and it’s up to them to decide if they want to stop the system and we can survive without the system, but nothing to do for me with force majeure.”
Haas team principal Guenther Steiner echoed Vasseur’s view. “We have got rules and regulations which we need to respect,” he said. “If we don’t respect our own rules, and try to find ways around it, I don’t think that’s correct. I mean, we could then apply that to other things as well.”
“I’m one of those who says if you’ve got rules, if we don’t respect them and just try to find ways around that why we have rules, then we need to change the rules and that is a different discussion,” he said. “If you want to change the rule, let’s speak about it but, again, there’s a governance in place.”
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