15/07/2022
NEWS STORY
"Incredible" maiden F1 run lived up to expectations declares Colton Herta as he completes two day test with McLaren at Portimao.
Running a 2021 car as part of the ‘TPC programme', and with an eye on the fact McLaren has to run a rookie in two FP1 sessions before season end, over the last couple of days Colton Herta has completed 162 laps of the Portimao track that made its debut on the F1 schedule in 2020.
The American was impressed.
"The first thing was lifting off the pit lane speed limiter, and all the torque is pretty incredible," he said. "Even when you're in such low RPM, it still pulls. That was the biggest thing for me, the straight-line speed, the acceleration and the braking.
"Obviously the cornering speeds were higher than what you would get in an IndyCar," he continued, "but it didn't stick out to me as much as how impressive the acceleration and how easy it was with all this horsepower to put the throttle down.
"It's a completely different feel, obviously, the feeling that you get from an IndyCar is way different because of the lack of power steering," he added. "So the overall kickback and the smoothness of the wheel doesn't really transcribe to what you'd get in a Grand Prix car. So that was something to get used to, slowing down the hands.
"I felt comfortable right away," he admitted. "The biggest thing was putting a lap together. I felt like I got to the limit about midway through the day, but that was just separate corners. At the end of the second day, I was pretty confident putting the laps together, low fuel and high fuel, and everything in between."
"In the next days, the team will go into the detail, go into the data in detail, to get an initial idea of the potential Colton's shown in our car," said Andreas Seidl as the Woking outfit weighs up who should participate in those rookie tests - Herta at COTA anyone?
"That will obviously be part of our evaluation, how the next potential steps could look like," said the German. "As you know, we are obliged by the regulations that we have to run a Formula 1 rookie two times this year in the Free Practice 1 sessions.
"We plan to do that at the race weekends, at some point, after the summer break. So we will have time in order to decide when we actually do that, and who we put in the car."