Colton Herta became the youngest winner in IndyCar history at the IndyCar Classic and is now out for more success after "being bitten by the bug".
Herta was able to qualify his Harding Steinbrenner-run car fourth at the Circuit of the Americas and run with the leaders of Team Penske's Will Power and Andretti Autosport's Alexander Rossi for the majority of the race, keeping himself in contention for the win.
The 18-year-old took the lead after Power and Rossi failed to stop under the green flag conditions when the full-course caution came out for the wreckage of Felix Rosenqvist's #10 NTT Data Chip Ganassi car on the inside of Turn 19.
When the race got restarted, Herta was able to pull away from Josef Newgarden and Ryan Hunter-Reay, despite having much less push-to-pass available for the final 10 laps. He was able to build a gap and maintain it until he crossed the line, despite not feeling confident he would have been able to hold off the 2017 series champion.
"I was not super confident at all, to be honest. I was kind of looking at it [that] they might get by me," said Herta.
"I thought I [would] still manage a podium. The other thing, I've never done a restart from cold tyres that were reds. In St Pete, I only made my restarts on blacks.
"But, yeah, it kind of felt a little unnatural. The tyres came up to temperature really quickly. It wasn't really that big of a problem. I got a really big jump out. Newgarden got a little bit of wheelspin. It was off to the races for me.
"Yeah, pulled out the gap. Kind of got it to where I wanted and tried to hold it there and save my 'push to pass' in case a caution came out at the end."
He has now set his sights on getting a second victory under his belt as quickly as possible at the next race at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. "I've been bitten by the bug now. One race isn't enough. Going to go for another one at Barber. Just want to get there and drive again."
