MONTEREY, Calif. – The house of Herta, otherwise known as WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, is secure as Colton Herta gave the Herta family its fourth career victory at this storied facility Sunday afternoon.
Herta’s victory in the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey was was his fifth victory, surpassing his father’s career record of four wins that includes two in CART and two in the NTT IndyCar Series.
At Laguna Seca, the Herta family has four wins, with the father and son pairing now having two apiece.
RESULTS: Firestone Grand Prix of MontereyColton
With Bryan calling his race strategy, 21-year-old Colton led 91 of 95 laps for this second victory of the season. He made it look easy.
“No, it wasn’t,” said the Andretti/Curb-Agajanian driver. “Alex, really the whole race, was right there. Then Grosjean at the end pressured Alex, therefore pressured me. It was very interesting to see the cars that struggled with tire deg that we were much faster than. Once we got to them, we were stuck behind them, struggling to overtake.
“The balance for most of the race, when I was stuck behind lap traffic, defending from Alex but trying to get by the other drivers, was very difficult and different to the race I had in 2019.
“They were both refreshing and fun. Glad it was over because it got hectic at some points. I really didn’t want it to be.”
Herta defeated NTT IndyCar Series championship leader Alex Palou by 1.9747 seconds. Palou has a commanding 35-point lead over fifth-place finisher Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren SP heading into next Sunday’s season finale at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
“Obviously that helps knowing that we have a good margin instead of needing to win to get the championship,” Palou said. “That means we did a really good job so far. So happy with that.
“IndyCar you cannot relax at any moment. We just keep doing what we’ve been doing, race hard, race smart, and hopefully we can get that championship without needing to finish 11 or anything. We will try and get the best result as possible.”
Palou and O’Ward are the only drivers left in contention for the series championship. Josef Newgarden is mathematically alive at 48 points back, but with only 54 points eligible in each race, unusual circumstances would have to happen for Newgarden to win his third NTT IndyCar Series championship.
Former Formula 1 driver Romain Grosjean was third and the only other driver to lead laps in the 95-lap contest. Grosjean was out front for four laps after Herta made his pit stops.
“The race was fun,” Grosjean said. “Turn one is a good place to overtake, the corkscrew is another good place to do so. Cool tires were very hard for a couple of laps. Warm tires were hard for the last 10 laps of each stint, very tricky. It was about keeping the car on track and trying to maximize your pace.”
Graham Rahal was fourth in the No. 15 Honda for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing followed by O’Ward.
“I’m, like, disappointed, but happy,” O’Ward said. “Happy because I think we pulled off a miracle with what package we had this weekend. We didn’t have anything at all. I don’t know how I pulled off a Fast 6 in the qualifying, to be fairly honest. I think that put us in a great position to start.
“We took a risk. We started on Blacks, because that’s our worst tire, has been all year. But the preferred tire was new. We only had one set of new reds, so we were forced to use three blacks, one new red. That was our race.
“We did everything we could. I fought like hell. So, I mean, we’re sort of still alive in the championship. I know a lot of things can fall either our way or against us in Long Beach. What we can try and do is just go there and try and win it and we’ll see where everything else falls, I guess.”
Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson had the best finish of his IndyCar rookie season. He started 25th and finished 17th, including a magnificent move in the Corkscrew when he passed IndyCar veteran James Hinchcliffe for position.
On lap 85 Grosjean banged into the side of Johnson’s No. 48 Honda in the Corkscrew and the steering wheel slightly injured Johnson’s wrist. The driver was still able to celebrate his best finish of the season.
“I’m sorry we made contact with Jimmie,” Grosjean said. “I was definitely going in (for the pass). I think Jimmie probably didn’t see me. He was pushing hard to protect Alex from me, which is the game. So, we made a bit of contact.
“I had a lot of passes on the corkscrew, which was good. Felt a bit like Alex Zanardi, which is not a bad thing. I must say I’m very impressed with Honda today because the podium is fully Honda. I think we had a great drivability to look after the tires probably better than others.”
Scott Dixon (13th) and Marcus Ericsson (sixth) were eliminated from championship contention.
Herta had a second-lap incident with teammate Alexander Rossi, when Rossi’s car got squirrelly, hit Herta and went of course. Herta was able to continue.
His only other incident came with a critter on the track. Herta’s car survived. The critter did not.
“It was either a squirrel or a bunny,” Herta said. “The last time I was here there were a lot of squirrels on the track, so I imagine it was one of those guys unfortunately. But he came along with me to win the race, so…
“He’s won an IndyCar race. He’s got a lot more than a lot of IndyCar drivers.”