Colton Herta will have an easy go of keeping motivated in the IndyCar off-season after seizing victory last Sunday in the 2024 finale at Nashville Superspeedway.
The impressive move that brought the 24-year-old Herta a boon of good fortune and triumph came after a late pass on Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward with five laps to go. The two were battling and, as they came up on the lapped car of Sting Ray Robb, O’Ward — the race leader — went high, while Herta dove low and carried enough momentum to also get to the inside of O’Ward before clearing him to take the lead down the backstretch.
Not only did it mark the ninth win of Herta’s career, but it was his first on an oval and helped catapult him to finish a career-high second in the championship standings.
“The whole race, I was getting my passes done coming off the corners,” Herta said.
“I was able to drive off the middle to exit of the corners, and get the power down really well. We had a lapped car to play off of, and we had just enough room between us to go down low and get the pass (on O’Ward) done. I’m just so happy. The Gainbridge Group 1001 Honda has been so fast this whole weekend. We didn't get to show it in qualifying, but we knew we had a hot rod in the race today. It’s been an amazing year. Second in the championship is awesome, but it gives us something to shoot for in 2025.”
Herta ends the year with two wins, six podiums (career-high), 10 top fives and three poles in 17 races. Uniquely, his only other win on an oval also came against O’Ward during the 2018 Indy NXT season in the Freedom 100 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Additionally, this marked the first victory on an oval for Andretti Autosport since 2018 with Alexander Rossi at Pocono Raceway.
“It’s about time,” Herta said. “I think there’s been multiple times where I thought we could have won or should have won, and numerous things happened to stop us from doing that. Luckily, today we got it all right.
“I think that was in the form of a little bit of traffic to catch back up to Pato. I think it was, from my perspective, a really exciting race for it to close out like that right in the last few laps, have me battle Pato, then Josef (Newgarden) close to battling Pato. No, it was a great race.”
When asked if the performance was a statement leading into next year, Herta provided a candid response.
“I hope so,” Herta said. “There's a whole bunch of things we could have done to win the championship this year. I think we'll reflect on that, look at it going into the off-season.
“It does hurt a little bit when you think about winning the last race, and he didn't have a particularly strong one, so we could have made up a lot of points today if we needed to in that championship fight.”
