IndyCar Wrap-Up: Harding Steinbrenner Racing's 2019 Season

The fourth IndyCar team preview is the first team that won a race in 2019 and it actually won twice, it is Harding Steinbrenner Racing. The little team that had a meteoric rise in 2017 with a top ten finish on debut in the Indianapolis 500 and a top five in its second race ever saw a decline in 2018 but the injection of a new partner and one of IndyCar's brightest stars took the team to the top even if it did not cure all the financial ills.

Say hello to the future, his name is Colton Herta

Colton Herta
Magnificent. That is the only word for Herta's rookie season. He became the youngest winner in IndyCar history in the second race of the season, the third start of his career and he did it before he turned 19 years old. There were rough days but he won three pole positions, closed his rookie season with another victory and ended up seventh in the championship.

What objectively was his best race?
His two victories at Austin and Laguna Seca.

Herta's historic victory at Circuit of the Americas came through a bit of fortune and a bit of speed. Austin was a race Herta lucked into but he put himself in a position to capitalize on an opening. Herta was a distant third to Will Power and Alexander Rossi but he was on an island. He was third and was not challenged. For the first half of the race, he was keeping up with Power and Rossi and then those two pulled away.

Herta made a pit stop at the right time and it set him up to inherit the lead of an IndyCar race a week before his 19th birthday. The moment, in his third career start, could have seized him, especially with past champions Ryan Hunter-Reay and Josef Newgarden breathing down his neck for the restart but Herta left those two in his dust. The final stint showed no sign of nerves. It ended in glory.

At Laguna Seca, Herta started on pole position and ran away with it for the most part. He led 83 of 90 laps and he faced pressure in the first stint of the race from Scott Dixon and in the final stint of the race from Will Power. He had the two drivers with the most victories this decade breathing down his neck for at least 60 of 90 laps at Laguna Seca and Herta didn't buckle. He was clean and took a convincing victory.

What subjectively was his best race?
It is a toss up between Austin and Laguna Seca but let's talk about another race, Road America, because that was his most active race. Austin was one where Herta had speed and didn't have to use it. Road America was where Herta started on pole position, the first of his career.

He lost the lead immediately but remained in second and had to hold onto the car on degrading alternate tires. He lost time but bounced back on the second stint before the team shod his car with alternate tires again. Herta charged forward but started to fall behind and he found himself trying to fend off Scott Dixon, Felix Rosenqvist and James Hinchcliffe in the closing laps. Herta held on as long as he could but he was cooked in the final two laps.

It was an eighth place finish and part of it should fall on his team. The alternate tires were done after ten laps on the first stint and yet the team chose those tires for the final 15-lap stint. Herta was always going to lose time but Herta wrestled his car and brought it to the line with a result he can be disappointed about but one he does not have to hang his head over.

What objectively was his worst race?
It is the Indianapolis 500 where his gearbox broke after three laps and what was a fifth place starting position on Indianapolis 500 debut turned into a 33rd-place finish before the kid could break a sweat.

What subjectively was his worst race?
Indianapolis sucked for Herta but the race Herta let get away from him was Texas. Herta was in the top five for most of the time and he was again running with the big boys. The problem was Herta got a little too aggressive at a time when he had to bring the car home in one piece and in a good finishing position. He entered Texas having not had a top ten result in six consecutive races and he had retired in four consecutive races from Barber through the Indianapolis 500.

Herta made a bold move on Scott Dixon into turn three and the two cars made contact. Was the contact solely on Herta's shoulders? No. Dixon didn't leave much room to someone who had already claimed the inside but it was a case where Herta could have waited until the door was a little more open. There were still 20 laps to go. If he had not gotten another opportunity fifth would have been fantastic for him. Herta had a chance to get out of the hole and he dug himself a little deeper that night.

Colton Herta's 2019 Statistics
Championship Position: 7th (420 points)
Wins: 2
Podiums: 2
Top Fives: 3
Top Tens: 8
Laps Led: 144
Poles: 3
Fast Sixes: 5
Fast Twelves: 9
Average Start: 6.9375
Average Finish: 13.235

An Early Look Ahead
The good news is Harding Steinbrenner Racing is being absorbed into the Andretti Autosport stable and Herta will now be an official member of that team.

IndyCar is kind of losing a team in that it is losing an operation that independently ran a car but it is keeping a car on the grid and after seeing all that Herta accomplished this season with HSR, a team that struggled to make ends meet, you have to be excited about what he could accomplish in 2020.

If Herta can do all this with HSR what will he do with Andretti Autosport? He will turn 20 years old in between the first and second races next season and at 20 years old he is going to be a championship challenger. This could be a case of recency bias but I don't think it is because look at what Herta did for the entirety of 2019.

He should have made the Fast Six at St. Petersburg but got a penalty. He won Austin and Laguna Seca. He had three pole positions, tied with Will Power and Simon Pagenaud for most of the season. He made it to the second round of qualifying on nine of ten occasions. He made the Fast Six five times, only Scott Dixon, Alexander Rossi, Felix Rosenqvist and Josef Newgarden had more. His average starting position was fifth best behind only Dixon, Rossi, Newgarden and Power.

What cost Herta in 2019 were mechanical issues. Fuel pressure issues cost him at Barber. The gearbox broke on him three laps into the Indianapolis 500. He had another mechanical issue bite him late at Iowa while he was in the top ten. Add to it that James Hinchcliffe drove into him at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and the only results you can lay at the feet of Herta are Long Beach, when he hit the barrier while in the top ten and Pocono, where he had an accident while in the top ten.

Herta did not make many mistakes in his rookie year. Hopefully, the integration into the Andretti stable means those gremlins pop up less. If those mechanical issues do not come up and he continues what he was doing in 2019, it feels like he will be in the championship conversation.

2019 IndyCar Team Preview: Harding Steinbrenner Racing

The seventh IndyCar team preview has us looking at a team that really has turned into a bit of a villain in the latter days of the IndyCar off-season. Harding Steinbrenner Racing opened up the 2018-19 offseason with a bang announcing a two-car effort with 2018 Indy Lights champion Patricio O'Ward and 2018 Indy Lights vice-champion Colton Herta, in essence becoming Andretti Autosport's B-Team. The day before testing commenced from Austin it was announced that O'Ward was leaving the team due to lack of funding and now many have accosted HSR for failing to live up to its own hype. It will have the difficult task of winning back fans with a driver that some have soured on because of the perception that nepotism won out over ability.

2018 Harding Racing Review
Wins: 0
Best Finish: 9th (Sonoma)
Poles: 0
Championship Finishes: 21st (Gabby Chaves), 29th (Conor Daly), 31st (Patricio O'Ward), 37th (Colton Herta)

2019 Driver:

Colton Herta - #88 Harding Steinbrenner Racing Honda
At 14 years old, Herta was in U.S. F2000 and in 12 starts he had six top ten finishes with his best finish being fifth on two occasions. He was 15th in the championship, finishing ten points behind Austin Cindric despite missing the first two races. In 2015, Herta headed to England and ran in the MSA Formula Championship, now known as the F4 British Championship. He was teammate to current McLaren driver Lando Norris and Norris won the title but Herta finished third in the championship with Ricky Collard splitting the Carlin teammates. Norris won eight races to Herta's four.

The 2016 season was split between BRDC British Formula Three and the Euroformula Open Championship with the latter being his main draw. He was third in that championship behind Leonardo Pulcini and Ferdinand Habsburg with his four victories coming in a weekend sweep at Red Bull Ring, one victory at Jerez and one victory at Barcelona. In England, he made six starts and won a race on the Brands Hatch grand prix circuit while he had a pair of thirds and a sixth at Oulton Park.

Herta returned to American for 2017 to run in Indy Lights and he opened the season with a second and a first at St. Petersburg and a victory in the second Barber race gave him two victories from his first four starts. However, he would not win another race for the remainder of the season despite winning five more pole positions. He did pick up four more podium finishes and was third in the championship behind Indy Lights-experienced drivers Kyle Kaiser and Santiago Urrutia.

For 2018, he had nine podium finishes from the first ten races, including four consecutive victories with a sweep of the races on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, the Freedom 100 and a victory at Road America. However, his season turned at Toronto where a collision with the barrier in the first race broke his wrist and he was not 100% in the second race. He would be fine for the rest of the season but could not win another race while O'Ward won four of the final five and took the championship by 44 points over Herta.

Numbers to Remember:
17: Starts it took for Bryan Herta to get his first IndyCar podium finish (second at Cleveland in 1995).

71: Starts it took for Bryan Herta to get his first IndyCar victory (Laguna Seca 1998).

57.57: Percentage of podium finishes in Herta's 33 Indy Lights starts.

24,381: Days between the only victory for the #88 car in American open-wheel racing history and the St. Petersburg season opener. Al Keller won a NASCAR Speedway Division race on June 8, 1952 at Lakewood Speedway outside Atlanta.

Predictions/Goals:
How things have changed after O'Ward and HSR split the day before testing began. I was going to say the goal for Herta should be to beat his teammate because if he does that than he is either getting a lot of good results or something went horribly wrong for O'Ward. Something did go horribly wrong for O'Ward and now Herta doesn't have a measuring stick within the team. He is still going have to a tough rookie class to contend with but while Felix Rosenqvist is with Ganassi, Marcus Ericsson is with Schmidt Peterson and Santino Ferrucci is with Dale Coyne, Herta is still on a fairly new team with no pedigree of success. If Herta had a teammate we would at least get a head-to-head comparison in case the team is off the pace compared to the rest of the grid.

The good news for Herta is the preseason test at Austin shows that Harding Steinbrenner Racing has found some speed. He topped three of the four sessions and was second in the other. Herta ended with the top time of the test. All four rookies had encouraging results at the Austin test but Herta's confidence probably increased the most of the four after an entire offseason of uncertainty and the bad buzz that hung around the team leading into the test.

I was going to write that Herta needs to take back some of the luster. Many pegged Herta to be the championship favorite for Indy Lights in 2018 but O'Ward stole the show. It is not that O'Ward handily beat Herta in Indy Lights. Herta was leading the championship after ten races but one poor weekend at Toronto, where he also broke his wrist, gave O'Ward the championship lead and Herta could not retake momentum in the final five races.

O'Ward did not make mistakes and Herta made plenty of mistakes in his two Indy Lights seasons. Herta cannot afford to do that in IndyCar. There were a lot of races where Herta had the pace but stepped over the boundary and it caught him out. He had better control in 2018 despite the few occasions where he did tear up the car but with the increased power of an IndyCar it would not be a surprise if Herta has a hard time handling it and makes a mistake or two while he tries to get used to wrestling something of this magnitude.

Now that he does not have a teammate Herta should aim for six or seven top ten finishes and six or seven top ten starts but more importantly Herta needs to get laps. He is only going to be 18 years old when the season begins. He could spend another two years in Indy Lights truth be told. There is a lot of career ahead of him and it is important that he completes laps and gains the experience necessary in his youth to set him on the right course for the future. He could be in IndyCar for the next two decades. He is not going to make his career in this season but this year sets up the dominoes.

I was going to write that the one concern with this team carrying into 2019 is funding. Harding Racing was out of money last year and ran with some older equipment compared to the rest of the grid. The partnership with George Michael Steinbrenner IV was thought to have been the saving grace but that only got Herta on the grid and the great ambition to field the top two drivers from Indy Lights proved to be a bust. An added emphasis will be on Herta not getting into accidents especially if the team cannot afford spares. This may reign him in a bit and instead of pushing to qualify in the top six he could be starting races 12th or 13th or he may settle for seventh in a race even if sixth is right in front of him.

The first test from Circuit of the Americas shows the team has pace and Herta's stock shot up immensely after two days. One test can be misleading and there will be rough patches as he is a teenager and there hasn't been a teenager that has entered IndyCar and never put a wheel wrong. Herta will have bad days but he is ready for this level and could turn this opportunity into great success for a developing team.

The 2019 NTT IndyCar Series season opens on Sunday March 10th with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. NBCSN's coverage will begin at 1:00 p.m. ET.