Herta reaches 40 super licence points in Mexico City practice
Cadillac reserve Colton Herta completed his fifth first-practice outing of the season in Mexico City and, according to PlanetF1 and RacingNews365, reached the 40 super licence points needed to be eligible for a Formula 1 race seat. No 2027 seat has been announced.
The missing point
Colton Herta has cleared the last hurdle between him and a Formula 1 race seat. PlanetF1 and RacingNews365 both report that the Cadillac reserve reached the 40 points required for an FIA super licence by running in first practice for the Mexico City Grand Prix on Friday, 30 October 2026. A point is awarded when a driver covers 100 km in a first-practice session, and Herta had arrived in Mexico on 39.
He drove Valtteri Bottas's car. According to our OpenF1 timing data, he completed 30 laps and ended the session 22nd and last, 3.237 s behind Charles Leclerc's 1:18.128, with a best lap of 1:21.365. Practice times say little about the longer-term picture, since reserve drivers often run set-up and data programmes rather than chase lap time.
How he got there
Most of Herta's total comes from the 2024 IndyCar season, in which he finished runner-up and collected 30 points. Further points came from earlier practice outings for Cadillac in Barcelona, Austria and the United States. A run in Sergio Perez's car at Monza ended with technical problems after only 25 km, so it earned nothing. PlanetF1 adds that the points from his 2023 IndyCar finish expire at the end of 2026, which made this season the deadline.
Herta moved from IndyCar to Formula 2 for 2026 and took on the Cadillac reserve role alongside it. His super licence history has been a story for years: in 2022 the FIA rejected a request to let him race without the points, when Helmut Marko wanted him at what was then AlphaTauri.
The seat question
The licence is a requirement, not a promise. Cadillac re-signed Perez through 2029 earlier this week, while Bottas's future has not been addressed publicly. RacingNews365 writes that Herta is understood to be a contender for a 2027 race seat if Cadillac makes a change, and quotes a Cadillac spokesperson saying it would be "remiss" not to give him the chance to earn his licence. At the Austin press conference team boss Marcin Budkowski declined to discuss contracts, saying announcements would come from the team when the time is right.
Budkowski also said Cadillac may run Herta in another first practice before the season ends, which would add a further safeguard for his eligibility. The next opportunity would be the São Paulo weekend.
What it means
With the licence in hand, Herta can be named by any team without needing an exemption. Whether that happens at Cadillac or elsewhere is open: the team has announced no driver line-up for 2027 beyond Perez, and nothing has been confirmed about Bottas.
