Colton Herta shares feelings over missing Indy 500

Colton Herta has admitted it "hurts" to miss the Indianapolis 500 this year after F2 added rounds in Miami and Montreal to its schedule in place of the cancelled events in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

The war in the Middle East prevented F1 and its support series from visiting the region in April, and Formula 2 CEO Bruno Michel had previously said the championship would not race independently, meaning its options for replacements were limited.

Unfortunately for Herta, a clash between the Canadian Grand Prix and the Indy 500 rules him out from competing for Andretti Global — his former IndyCar team — as a fourth entry in the 110th running of the famous race.

The American driver is also seeing the positives of the development, despite being unable to take part in the Month of May in the Stateside series.

"It's a little bit of an up and down reaction, but overall, I'm excited," the nine-time IndyCar winner told RACER.

"It's two new tracks for me, two tracks that I've watched on TV that look like a lot of fun and places that look like they're just a thrill to drive.

"So I'm excited on that front. Obviously, there's a bit of me that hurts because you can't do the 500 now, but this is taking the forefront of what I'm doing.

"So, we knew that something like this would be possible, even though we didn't see it coming from this angle. But I'm excited for the new rounds, and I'm glad that F2 and Bruno Michel were able to find some sort of replacements for the missing two rounds."

Herta 'all for' F2 racing in North America

F2 heading to North America for the first time has been rumoured for weeks, with the series confirming those plans in recent days.

And despite the Indy 500 holding a special place in his heart, it was a straightforward decision for Herta to race at the new additions to the Formula 2 calendar.

"I can't remember the first time I heard murmurings of it," the Hitech driver said. "But I think when I heard about it legitimately was, I don't know, maybe the last few weeks. And then we were kind of trying to make backup plans: What's this going to look like? How do we kind of protect ourselves? And what's the best course of action?

"Obviously, for me, it was pretty simple because F2 is my main focus this year, and that deserves the most attention for me, even though the Indy 500 is also super special to me."

Herta's high-profile switch to F2 has been well documented as he pursues his aim of racing in F1, so the feeder championship heading to North America is still an exciting development for the 25-year-old.

"I'm all for it," he said. "It's an exciting thing that hopefully we can put on a great race, and hopefully it's a thing where maybe the promoters in the U.S. look at it as a necessary thing for the future and that F2 gets to go there more so in the future.

"But for me, it's huge because we get to come Stateside. And almost twice – we get to go up to our friends up north in Canada, which is also so close to the U.S. So it's special for me. It's something that I did not see coming this year. So for that aspect, I feel very lucky."