Colton Herta has revealed how his Formula 1 dream collapsed in the winter of 2021 after a move to Alfa Romeo Racing failed to materialise.

The 2021 IndyCar season had been a mixture of high and lows for the young Californian as he failed to replicate his form from the 2020 season, but he still managed to win three races which included a pair of dominant wins in St Petersburg and Laguna Beach as well victory in the season’s final race Long Beach.

Few in the IndyCar fraternity knew it at the time, but Long Beach looked set to be Herta’s final race in the series for some time as Herta explained to Indystar that his team boss Michael Andretti had planned to move him to Formula 1 if his planned take over of Alfa Romeo Racing came to fruition. 

With Herta still short of the superlicence points required to race in Formula 1, Andretti planned to run Herta in the Alfa Romeo during FP1 for the American, Mexico City and Sao Paulo Grand Prix, along with some private testing at Ferrari’s private test track at Fiorano in order to get him the points that he needed.

Herta had even consigned himself to the fact that he would be returning to IndyCar later in his career after his time in Formula 1 had ended.

“I was definitely telling myself I’d be back (in IndyCar), but I just didn’t really know when. I didn’t want to race in F1 (for) the rest of my life and retire. I wanted to come back and be able to run the Indy 500 more times and run the full season. But I believed I was going (to F1), and I thought it was almost for sure – although there was a small part of me that was still, like, ‘Well, I don’t have a contract yet, so it can still come undone.’”

However, just as Herta booked his flights to begin his Formula 1 adventure, takeover talks between Andretti and the Sauber group rapidly collapsed after the group decided only to let Andretti buy an 80% stake in the team, forcing him to walk away from negotiations.

Herta recalls the moment when talks began to go south between the two parties.

“It started slowly, like, ‘Oh, it’s not looking good,’” he said. “It was, ‘Oh, (Sauber) wants this on the first day. We’ll try to work with him the next day and the third day; you could start to tell it was going the wrong way. Michael and Dan (Towriss) did everything they should have in that situation, but you can’t force it. It wasn’t a good deal, so props to them for stepping away from it. It’s almost like buying a house, and someone outbids you by $10,000, and you just can’t do it.”

Although Andretti Global plans to enter Formula 1 in 2024 with Renault engines and Herta as one of its drivers, McLaren will be the first team to give Herta a taste of Formula 1 machinery as he embarks on a testing programme this year with the team’s 2021 car the MCL35M.

With Daniel Ricciardo out of contract at the end of 2023, Herta jokingly hopes that Lando Norris will keep beating the Australian so that his opportunity comes with the Woking-based team.

“If (Ricciardo) continues to build, I probably won’t have that opportunity, but hopefully, Lando kicks his a** a bit more, so I can at least have a shot. Obviously, I’d never wish down on someone.”

“I’m not praying for his downfall. If he does well, great for him – he deserves the seat. I guess it’s all in his hands for the future, but part of me does kinda hope I get the opportunity, at least a little foot in the door, to maybe show what I can do. Who has ever been in a bidding war that’s never been in an F1 car for an F1 seat? Yeah, that’s like the ultimate positive.” 

“I have no clue what I would even think about doing. There’s a lot more unknown on the Andretti side, but maybe they’re more lenient on me. For sure, Zak is cutthroat. He’s a businessman, but I know he’d give me a fair shot.”