Colton Herta Brings American Wall-Banging To Europe

Colton Herta arrived in Formula 2 this year determined to prove that his years of experience in American open-wheel racing had prepared him for the rigours of European motorsport.

And he has.

Specifically, Herta has demonstrated that his highly developed ability to crash into things is fully transferable between continents.

For years, Herta has been one of IndyCar's quickest drivers, capable of extraordinary speed and, on occasion, extraordinary interpretations of where the racing circuit ends and the scenery begins. Now, having crossed the Atlantic, he has brought his unique relationship with walls to Europe, where apparently the masonry is just as inviting.

His F2 season has been less a championship campaign and more an ambitious international tour of trackside barriers. The European audience, initially unfamiliar with this particular branch of American motorsport culture, has taken to it enthusiastically.

Herta's problem is that F2 contains a rather annoying feature known as a championship table. It records points rather than impacts, which has left his season looking considerably less impressive than the highlights reel. After 11 rounds, he had collected just 26 points, while teammate Ritomo Miyata had 70. Herta's best result was fifth in a sprint race, while qualifying has generally been less a gateway to success and more an opportunity to establish where the nearest wall is.

At Monza, Herta managed to crash twice. This was important because it demonstrated that his technique is not dependent on a particular type of circuit, car or continent. Give him a European F2 car and sufficient quantities of Italian tarmac and he will eventually locate something solid.

Madrid provided another highlight when Herta crashed in qualifying and subsequently withdrew from both races. At this point, Herta's F2 engineer were apparently considering replacing the traditional circuit map with a diagram showing all the walls.

The Cadillac F1 project, meanwhile, must be watching this development with considerable interest. Herta remains part of the manufacturer's long-term plans, but there is presumably a meeting somewhere in General Motors' headquarters asking whether "European experience" was supposed to involve quite so much contact with European infrastructure.

Still, Herta deserves credit. He has successfully demonstrated that American racing culture can travel. The only slight problem is that the part he brought with him was apparently the crash test.