Not long ago it seemed like Formula 1’s interest in IndyCar talents might be higher than it had been in decades.

Admittedly that was entirely down to the enthusiasm of one team – McLaren.

But from Pato O’Ward’s Abu Dhabi F1 test last December and the programme being put together in older cars for Colton Herta to the revelation than an F1 ‘opportunity’ was pivotal in champion Alex Palou trying to ditch Ganassi for Arrow McLaren SP in 2023, there appeared to be three realistic chances for an IndyCar race-winner to transition to a leading F1 team.

As time has passed, it’s become clearer that this process has been more about McLaren lining up some interesting leftfield options for the mandatory rookie runs in Friday practice at grands prix than the team deciding IndyCar was the ideal pool to pick its next F1 drivers from. It seems set to replace Daniel Ricciardo for 2023, but with Formula 2 champion Oscar Piastri rather than an IndyCar star.

indycar’s f1-linked trio: do any of them really have a shot?

So is IndyCar just not a viable route to F1? Do the trio McLaren has explored have any hope of getting on the F1 grid?

This week’s episode of The Race F1 Podcast took an in-depth look at what makes IndyCar drivers still look towards F1 no matter how much success they have in America, and the elements that make moving between the series particularly challenging.

Special guest JR Hildebrand – not just a long-time IndyCar racer and The Race IndyCar Podcast co-host but a driver who was given a shock shot at fighting for a Force India F1 seat at the end of 2009 – and Scott Mitchell also assessed Herta, O’Ward and Palou’s chances of making it in F1.

They’re not the only F1-worthy talents on the 2022 IndyCar grid. But most others in that bracket have either been and gone in F1 already or are not of the right age profile for an F1 switch now. And double champion Josef Newgarden, who is also now 31 years old, has previously indicated that as it’s unlikely a top F1 team would take someone straight from IndyCar, he didn’t see much attraction in swapping what he’s got with Penske for the grand prix midfield.

Here’s a taster of our podcast panel’s debate around O’Ward, Herta and Palou’s F1 hopes, and why they think only one of them has a slightly realistic chance.

PATO O’WARD

indycar’s f1-linked trio: do any of them really have a shot?

There was a lot of excitement last December when the spectacular Arrow McLaren SP racer with the extraordinary car control was given the F1 test chance he’d been promised for taking the modern McLaren IndyCar project’s first race win.

But afterwards it not only took a surprisingly long time for O’Ward’s McLaren IndyCar contract renewal to be agreed, but there was relative silence regarding him and F1 – with McLaren announcing at the same time that it was going to give Herta some F1 mileage.

Mitchell’s understanding is that the Abu Dhabi test just wasn’t quite impressive enough to make a case for accelerating O’Ward towards F1.

“I don’t think Pato wowed McLaren in a way that means he’s got in the door enough to really get a shot there,” he said.

indycar’s f1-linked trio: do any of them really have a shot?

Hildebrand suspects O’Ward is going to have to make an even bigger impression to force his way onto the F1 grid because the series already has Red Bull’s Sergio Perez to appeal to Mexican fans so there’s no commercial urgency to get him in the field.

“He’d be more in a mode where he has to be super-impressive to be able to maintain a presence and standing in this conversation,” said Hildebrand of O’Ward’s F1 chances, albeit while adding: “Pato is just as good as Colton, frankly.”

And in character and personality terms, Mitchell feels O’Ward staying in IndyCar would be a loss for F1 – the Mexican having made a bigger impression on our writer in a late-2021 interview.

“It was one of the most open and honest conversations I’d had all year, and it was the first time I’d met the guy,” said Mitchell. “He was just on the rev limiter the entire chat!”

O’Ward is possibly also not helped by perceptions that might have been formed when he was briefly grabbed by Red Bull in 2019.

indycar’s f1-linked trio: do any of them really have a shot?

It had been impressed by his Indy Lights title and stunning early IndyCar races, but a Formula 2 one-off and handful of Super Formula races was an odd way to deploy him.

“Pato never really got a fair shake,” said Mitchell of Red Bull’s dalliance with him.

“That bizarre stint he had on the Red Bull programme where he got thrown in to Formula 2 for one race weekend, he was on an absolute hiding to nothing doing that.”

ALEX PALOU

indycar’s f1-linked trio: do any of them really have a shot?

Though the reigning champion reached IndyCar via the Japanese scene, he also spent plenty of his junior career on the European F1 ladder. He was a winner in EuroFormula Open (pictured above), GP3 and Formula V8 3.5, never looking like a superstar in waiting but rarely in a great team/equipment situation given budget limitations.

“He had a really piecemeal junior career because he was always- not hand-to-mouth as such, but the end goal was always just to become a professional racing driver,” said Mitchell.

“He had no idea where that would be. I remember covering BRDC Formula 4 when George Russell won the championship [in 2014] and Palou turned up for one weekend at Silverstone mid-season, and was really good.

“He came out of nowhere, was top six all weekend on his first go in the car, and then disappeared! And it was like ‘who was that guy?’”

Palou’s IndyCar career so far has been incredible. Quietly impressive as a rookie with Dale Coyne Racing in 2020, he earned a surprise Ganassi chance and toppled six-time champion and team legend Scott Dixon at the first attempt to win the 2021 title.

But now his career is in chaotic deadlock after the farcical day in which Ganassi announced it had extended his deal for 2023 hours before McLaren announced it had signed him. It will have to be resolved in court, and Palou’s camp is now in the bizarre situation of taking legal action against the team currently running him.

“I don’t think anyone even knows where the guy’s going to be racing next year, which makes it even harder to predict if he can ever get to Formula 1,” said Mitchell.

Both he and Hildebrand think the aptitude Palou showed in conquering IndyCar so quickly would stand him in very good stead for F1, though, if his circumstances were more straightforward.

indycar’s f1-linked trio: do any of them really have a shot?

“He’d be an interesting one to watch, having seen how quickly he adapted to IndyCar,” said Mitchell. “It would be fascinating to see how he got on in an F1 context.”

Hildebrand added: “Of the lot of them, Alex is the guy in the IndyCar Series who is the most Scott Dixon-esque.

“He’s the guy that takes everything that’s available to him, has a lot of bandwidth for every situation, he’s super smooth, he’s able to just go out there and get what’s there in an altogether unexciting way.

“It’s just like ‘oh, Alex is on top of the board’ and you’d watch his onboard and it doesn’t look really hairy or necessarily even super-impressive compared to other guys.

“He has that innate ability that maybe in a weird way from a driving style perspective is what would best suit getting in an F1 car from among the three of them.”

COLTON HERTA

indycar’s f1-linked trio: do any of them really have a shot?

There are two reasons why Mitchell and Hildebrand think Herta’s F1 chances are more realistic than O’Ward and Palou’s: sheer ability, and the fact there’s a team trying to build an F1 future around him.

The Andretti organisation has made very clear that Herta will be in the cockpit if it gets the F1 opening it’s desperately pushing for.

Whether that happens is a moot point. But if it does, Andretti is likely to be more willing to commit to a longer-term transition process for Herta than an established F1 team might.

Herta was Lando Norris’s Carlin team-mate in what was then called MSA Formula in 2015, a season with a lot of echoes of what’s happened in his career since.

“Herta was really highly-rated and there was even a little bit of a feeling that he might actually be slightly faster than Lando,” said Mitchell.

“He was just binning it a little bit too often!

“My big concern is that as early as Formula 4, the worry was that he was super-fast but he makes too many mistakes and he throws it off.

“Lando Norris joked that his nickname in F4 was ‘Hooligan Herta’ because he was so quick in the high-speed corners but he just kept binning it.

“I now see what he does in IndyCar, and he goes from these insane peaks where he looks like clearly the fastest driver in the field – and he actually is, there’s no one on his level on his day – and then he’s put it in the wall again.

“He just won’t learn. He’s like the Charles Leclerc of IndyCar. It’s like ‘come on, man, I know you can do this – just stop binning it!’”

But Hildebrand sees plenty of upside in that sheer raw speed and the fact Herta is still only 22 years old and developing.

“He’s most free of restraint when it comes to extracting pace, and is a guy who can get in and manage to create something from nothing somewhere,” he said.

indycar’s f1-linked trio: do any of them really have a shot?

“You can’t ignore him. That’s what happens with some of these guys: they make enough of an initial impression that teams and sponsors and everybody else will just for years remember how incredible that first go was and think ‘surely we can figure out a way to get that back out of them?’.

“And he’s still young. He’s in the right spot of still having peak performance and an ability to learn and adapt to how things work in a different way.”

F1’s ambivalence about the Andretti entry is rooted partly in a feeling that it doesn’t need an American team to stimulate US interest in the championship.

But an American driver might be a different matter, and Hildebrand thinks Herta is better-placed to capitalise on this than some compatriots were.

“He’s an American who people really think of as being American,” he said.

“I think this was partly Alexander Rossi’s downfall when he got to F1 – he came up through the junior formula ranks in Europe, which probably made him best prepared to actually get in an F1 car and be good.

indycar’s f1-linked trio: do any of them really have a shot?

“But an American audience didn’t even know who he was.”

While Mitchell expressed concern that the possibility of Herta topping one session then crashing in the next might not go down well in F1, both he and Hildebrand said it was too simplistic to just look at the errors.

“While there’s frustration at this inability to learn from mistakes, our IndyCar correspondent Jack Benyon says that on the technical side there have been such clear steps on fuel-saving, tyre management and that kind of thing from Herta,” said Mitchell.

“So he has shown an ability to adapt and evolve and identify weaknesses, and crucially act on them.

“One of the things that often frustrates us about F1 drivers is when there’s a level of stagnation in their development and I think it would be very unfair to say that Colton hasn’t improved.

“As a driver, he’s just refining himself all the time. And you can see he’s becoming a really, really interesting prospect.

“But he does blot his copybook with the high-profile errors.”

indycar’s f1-linked trio: do any of them really have a shot?

While the technology and car behaviour differences between F1 and IndyCar are wide right now, Hildebrand reckons the American series is an underestimated school when it comes to technical feedback and working with engineers, and that element might be appreciated in F1 too.

“You’re much more dependent in IndyCar on for instance making the car better through practice one with just the available tools and adjustments that your engineer has,” he explained.

“If you’re a good IndyCar driver, you’re used to being really involved in that engineering conversation.

“Colton in particular knows exactly what he needs from the car and what that feeling’s like. Any time you see him go out and stick it on a pole, it’s in part because he’s worked with Nathan O’Rourke, his engineer, to get the car into the place where he can go and be that guy in that qualifying session.

“He’s always been good at knowing what he needs, figuring that out and explaining it to an engineer.”

Keyword: IndyCar’s F1-linked trio: Do any of them really have a shot?

CAR'S NEWS RELATED

Best cars for a 'Love Bug' remake

Tennessee’s Yard Art The Thorndyke Special The Hot Rod The Hippie Van Jim’s Lamborghini Growing up, it’s safe to say my absolute favorite movie was Disney’s “The Love Bug.” As a kid living in a world before Pixar’s “Cars,” it was pretty much the best car movie. I loved ...

View more: Best cars for a 'Love Bug' remake

Audi timing belt tensioner prompts Utah bomb squad visit

An aftermarket timing belt tensioner found in a Salt Lake City apartment prompted a visit from the bomb squad this week after it was mistaken for a potential explosive device. Police partially evacuated the apartment complex in which it was found “out of an abundance of caution” and called ...

View more: Audi timing belt tensioner prompts Utah bomb squad visit

2023 GMC Sierra HD 2500 and 3500 will get more expensive

GMC Sierra HD pickups are about to get more expensive again after recently becoming more expensive, according to GM Authority. In July, GMC and Buick raised the prices on certain vehicles in their lineups anywhere from $975 to $1,675 by making the previously optional OnStar a standard feature. Next ...

View more: 2023 GMC Sierra HD 2500 and 3500 will get more expensive

Our week with EVs: Recapping the diverse collection of electric cars we tested

Mercedes-Benz EQB First Drive Review: Next electric Benz is a little different 2022 Chevy Bolt EV Road Test Review: Time to play EV, gas or airplane 2023 Genesis GV60 Road Test Review: The third of Hyundai Group’s E-GMP EVs is the fastest, but softest It may be hard to ...

View more: Our week with EVs: Recapping the diverse collection of electric cars we tested

Europe car sales lowest since 1996 after 12-month decline

BERLIN – Europe registered the lowest number of new passenger cars in the month of June this year since 1996 at just over 1.06 million vehicles, with some carmakers seeing sales drop by nearly 50%, data from Europe’s automobile association showed on Friday. Volkswagen Group was the hardest-hit major ...

View more: Europe car sales lowest since 1996 after 12-month decline

More Than Just A Carmaker: Toyota Motor PH Launches Toyota Mobility Solutions

Automotive industry leader, Toyota Motor Philippines Corporation (TMP) inaugurated today Toyota Mobility Solutions Philippines, Inc. (TMSPH), a wholly owned subsidiary that will be a provider of mobility-related services. TMSPH ventures into the development and offering of a range of ‘new mobility solutions’ that will enhance Toyota as a brand ...

View more: More Than Just A Carmaker: Toyota Motor PH Launches Toyota Mobility Solutions

'F1 22' feels fast and familiar | Gaming Roundup

‘F1 22’ impressions ‘Construction Simulator’ is launching Sept. 20 Autoblog may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Pricing and availability are subject to change. This week in racing game news: ‘F1 22’ impressions At its core, “F1 22,” the latest installment in the F1 ...

View more: 'F1 22' feels fast and familiar | Gaming Roundup

Watch a single-engine plane crash-land on 91 Freeway in California

A single-engine Piper Cherokee airplane was forced to crash land on the 91 Freeway in California after losing power about 45 minutes outside of Los Angeles. Yes, that means this was a very busy highway, practically bursting at the seams with traffic. No, amazingly nobody died, either in the ...

View more: Watch a single-engine plane crash-land on 91 Freeway in California

Ford files 'Mustang Dark Horse' trademark application

Make adventures more comfortable with high-quality Jeep grab handles

New Lucid Air variant to debut & Stealth Look to be on display during Monetary Car Week

Chevy offers incentives to prevent Corvette Z06 flipping

Average U.S. gas price falls below $4/gallon

German court: SUV driver must pay more than a car for running red light

Australian vehicle crash tests to include underwater performance

Toyota C-HR rumored to get revamp next year and an EV version

Geely's electric Zeekr 009 is an EV Alphard we never had; 700 km, 542 PS, top speed 190 km/h

A Newey, Brawn and Anderson row that shows F1 doesn’t change

Sorry, EV buyers, you won't get to pick your own pedestrian safety sounds

There won't be enough copper to meet climate goals, study indicates

OTHER CAR NEWS

; Top List in the World https://www.pinterest.com/newstopcar/pins/
Top Best Sushi Restaurants in SeoulTop Best Caribbean HoneymoonsTop Most Beautiful Islands in PeruTop Best Outdoor Grill BrandsTop Best Global Seafood RestaurantsTop Foods to Boost Your Immune SystemTop Best Foods to Fight HemorrhoidsTop Foods That Pack More Potassium Than a BananaTop Best Healthy Foods to Gain Weight FastTop Best Cosmetic Brands in the U.STop Best Destinations for Food Lovers in EuropeTop Best Foods High in Vitamin ATop Best Foods to Lower Your Blood SugarTop Best Things to Do in LouisianaTop Best Cities to Visit in New YorkTop Best Makeup Addresses In PennsylvaniaTop Reasons to Visit NorwayTop Most Beautiful Islands In The WorldTop Best Law Universities in the WorldTop Richest Sportsmen In The WorldTop Biggest Aquariums In The WorldTop Best Peruvian Restaurants In MiamiTop Best Road Trips From MiamiTop Best Places to Visit in MarylandTop Best Places to Visit in North CarolinaTop Best Electric Cars For KidsTop Best Swedish Brands in The USTop Best Skincare Brands in AmericaTop Best American Lipstick BrandsTop Michelin-starred Restaurants in MiamiTop Best Secluded Getaways From MiamiTop Best Things To Do On A Rainy Day In MiamiTop Most Instagrammable Places In MiamiTop Interesting Facts about FlorenceTop Facts About The First Roman Emperor - AugustusTop Best Japanese FoodsTop Most Beautiful Historical Sites in IsraelTop Best Places To Visit In Holy SeeTop Best Hawaiian IslandsTop Reasons to Visit PortugalTop Best Hotels In L.A. With Free Wi-FiTop Best Scenic Drives in MiamiTop Best Vegan Restaurants in BerlinTop Most Interesting Attractions In WalesTop Health Benefits of a Vegan DietTop Best Thai Restaurant in Las VegasTop Most Beautiful Forests in SwitzerlandTop Best Global Universities in GermanyTop Most Beautiful Lakes in GuyanaTop Best Things To Do in IdahoTop Things to Know Before Traveling to North MacedoniaTop Best German Sunglasses BrandsTop Highest Mountains In FranceTop Biggest Hydroelectric Plants in AmericaTop Best Spa Hotels in NYCTop The World's Scariest BridgeTop Largest Hotels In AmericaTop Most Famous Festivals in JordanTop Best European Restaurants in MunichTop Best Japanese Hiking Boot BrandsTop Best Universities in PolandTop Best Tips for Surfing the Web Safely and AnonymouslyTop Most Valuable Football Clubs in EuropeTop Highest Mountains In ColombiaTop Real-Life Characters of Texas RisingTop Best Beaches in GuatelamaTop Things About DR Congo You Should KnowTop Best Korean Reality & Variety ShowsTop Best RockstarsTop Most Beautiful Waterfalls in GermanyTop Best Fountain Pen Ink BrandsTop Best European Restaurants in ChicagoTop Best Fighter Jets in the WorldTop Best Three-Wheel MotorcyclesTop Most Beautiful Lakes in ManitobaTop Best Dive Sites in VenezuelaTop Best Websites For Art StudentsTop Best Japanese Instant Noodle BrandsTop Best Comedy Manhwa (Webtoons)Top Best Japanese Sunglasses BrandsTop Most Expensive Air Jordan SneakersTop Health Benefits of CucumberTop Famous Universities in SwedenTop Most Popular Films Starring Jo Jung-sukTop Interesting Facts about CougarsTop Best Hospitals for Hip Replacement in the USATop Most Expensive DefendersTop Health Benefits of GooseberriesTop Health Benefits of ParsnipsTop Best Foods and Drinks in LondonTop Health Benefits of Rosehip TeaTop Best Air Fryers for Low-fat CookingTop Most Asked Teacher Interview Questions with AnswersTop Best Shopping Malls in ZurichTop The Most Beautiful Botanical Gardens In L.A.Top Best Mexican Restaurants in Miami for Carb-loading rightTop Best Energy Companies in GermanyTop Best Garage HeatersTop Largest Banks in IrelandTop Leading Provider - Audit and Assurance In The USTop Best Jewelry Brands in IndiaTop Prettiest Streets in the UKTop Best Lakes to Visit in TunisiaTop Highest Mountains in Israel