Every season, a new crop of rookies join the Formula 2 grid. Most are graduates from F3, with an occasional sprinkling of drivers from other junior categories, but rarely do any come from professional-grade series. In 2026, however, there are two rookies doing just that: IndyCar’s Colton Herta and former Hypercar driver Nicolás Varrone. Feeder Series caught up with the pair recently ahead of the season opener in Melbourne. 

By Martin Lloyd 

Success will not be easy for either driver despite their previous records. They are coming from completely different racing worlds into a brand-new environment with completely different cars, but their previous pedigree means expectations will be higher for them than for most of F2’s rookies. 

In particular, Hitech’s Herta enters the series with a stellar professional record and a reputation as a road and street course specialist. The 2024 IndyCar runner-up has been the subject of regular rumours of a move to F1 since 2021, his third full season in the stateside series. He had taken championship finishes of seventh, third and fifth in that time while racing for Andertti Autosport, now Andretti Global.

The hurdle has always been super licence points, of which Herta needs 40 to be eligible for an F1 race seat. The FIA only offers that number to the IndyCar champion – a title that Herta has so far been unable to claim. By comparison, each of the top five drivers in the F2 championship earn 40 points, so with his move to F2, Herta, who currently has 34, could finally have a clear path to F1 if he finishes eighth or higher.

The new Cadillac F1 team was originally slated to be given the Andretti moniker and is owned by TWG Motorsports, which is also Andretti’s parent company. Herta’s placement in F2 is therefore viewed as part of a long-term plan to give him the chance to earn enough super licence points to enter F1 as early as 2027 and compete for Cadillac.

He is aiming to finish in the top eight of the F2 drivers’ standings, which, added to points he could gain from competing in F1 free practice sessions, would finally allow him to gain a full FIA Super Licence to compete in F1. He begins the season as Cadillac’s test driver, with a clear pathway to become a race driver if he attains the required super licence points.

Despite his pedigree, Herta has not had an easy switch to F2 machinery. He has participated in multiple official and unofficial tests with F2 machinery since his move to the championship was announced in October last year, most recently at the official pre-season test in Barcelona.

At a pre-season media roundtable, Herta told Feeder Series about the adjustments from his Andretti Global IndyCar machine to his Hitech F2 car. 

“It’s almost a 180º,” Herta said. “The driving style and the feel that this car produces is extremely different to everything that I’ve driven previously. It is a big jump. It is a bit different. There’s a lot of stuff to get used to.”

It was expected that Herta would have a longer adjustment time than more conventional rookies would. On the FIA pathway, the cars are all equipped with Pirelli tyres and designed similarly to allow for easier progression from F3 to F2 to F1. Herta comes from a championship with a completely different car design philosophy and Firestone tyres, making the adaptation much harder. 

“As you saw at the test, it’s getting better, but from my side, I don’t think it’s completely fluid yet,” Herta added. “It’s still going to take a time to be completely used to it and be like, ‘Okay, this is what I need to do, this is where I need to brake’, and know all these things pretty precisely before I get in the fight [at the front]. I’m just not there yet. But it’s getting close.”

Further down the pit lane is Van Amersfoort Racing, where Varrone can be found as teammate to the long-serving Rafael Villagómez. The Buenos Aires native, announced for the seat in October 2025, already had a test day in F2 machinery at the end of 2024 with AIX Racing, an opportunity that came about following a social media push in the wake of his compatriot Franco Colapinto’s ascension to F1.

Varrone also tested privately during his off-season in preparation for his race seat debut. He told Feeder Series that he was not expecting to have the opportunity to switch to F2 but felt he had to jump at the chance.

“I love every form of racing and endurance gave me my career that I have today. It gave me a lot of opportunities. When this change came up, I had two options: to continue in endurance and stay the same, or [to] go for this new challenge that is going to be big and it’s going to be really tricky,” he said.

“This chance came up with the [financial] Franco Colapinto effect [when] everything went crazy. There were people [who said], ‘If you want to do this, we will sponsor you. We will support you for this big change.’ And I took the chance because it’s something that will not happen twice in my life – and if I didn’t take it, I would regret it for sure for the rest of my life.”

Both Herta and Varrone have raced in junior single-seaters before, though each of their last races outside of the professional sphere was many years ago.

Having started his car racing career in the United States, Herta competed in Europe for two years, finishing third in MSA Formula – now British F4 – in 2015 and third again in Euroformula Open in 2016. He returned stateside in 2017 to complete two seasons in Indy Lights before he moved up to IndyCar. The now 25-year-old achieved great success in the championship, taking nine wins and 19 total podiums in his 116 starts before he made the move to F2. 

Varrone was most recently in junior single-seaters in British F3 in 2020, after which he moved to endurance racing. He was part of the winning Corvette Racing team in the LMGTE Am class of the 2023 World Endurance Championship, a season in which he also won at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.  He took his second class win at the Circuit de la Sarthe with AF Corse in LMP2 Pro-Am in 2024 before moving to the Hypercar class with Proton Competition for 2025.

Last year, Varrone also competed in the GTD Pro class of the IMSA SportsCar Championship Endurance Cup with Corvette. He will continue to do so this season at Daytona, Sebring and Petit Le Mans as part of the team that finished fourth at the Daytona 24 Hours in January. Herta, meanwhile, is partaking in his first full IMSA SportsCar campaign this season, racing in the GTP Hypercar category with the Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing team. He has competed in at least one IMSA SportsCar race every season since 2019.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency