Scott Goodyear, Race Director of the US Formula 3 and Formula 4 championships, has claimed that the FIA would not give Colton Herta clearance to race in a junior series, which he had hoped to do in order to gain enough super licence points for F1. IndyCar driver Herta had been linked with a seat at AlphaTauri in 2023 following the departure of Pierre Gasly to Alpine. However, the American ultimately did not have the required amount of super licence points to compete in Formula 1. According to Goodyear, Herta had looked into the possibility of racing in the US F3 series – which falls under the FIA – to boost his points. "We offer super licence points to the drivers competing in our series and, if you win the F3/F4/Formula Regional in this country, you’re awarded more points than you are if you win the Indy Lights championship," Goodyear said on the Racer to Racer podcast. "It's interesting because Bryan Herta [Colton's father] called me in July. He wanted to see if we could get Colton to run in our F3 series because he needed to gain more super licence points."
Herta 'couldn't get clearance from FIA'
Goodyear was keen for Herta to race in the category, but claims that the FIA would not clear the request. "We were approving it, but he couldn’t get clearance from the FIA to be able to run that and [for him to] be given an opportunity to collect some points," he said. "It was difficult. The teams and the drivers in F3 were ecstatic, because they thought somebody of Colton's calibre was going to come to run in the F3 and [they could] get a real chance to see how their abilities matched up to somebody that's one of the best drivers." Nyck de Vries was eventually signed by AlphaTauri for the 2023 F1 season alongside Yuki Tsunoda. RacingNews365.com has approached the FIA for comment.
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