Herta and the young guns ready to upset IndyCar's elite

When Josef Newgarden stepped onto the podium at Austin to celebrate second place and an extension of his early title lead, he wasn't expecting to be drinking non-alcoholic cider rather than sparkling wine.

That was meant to be for 18-year-old Colton Herta, who had just become IndyCar's youngest-ever race winner. It was a fairytale result for the new-look Harding team, now known as Harding Steinbrenner Racing, that had set out to rise from a one-off entry at the 2017 Indianapolis 500 to become a more stable, well-backed two-car team for '19.

Except that wasn't how things played out. The feel-good story of the pre-season crumbed over the winter. It was some crash from the wave the team had been riding, which had included securing Andretti Autosport technical support that extended to using some of its staff and help in the few areas open for development in IndyCar.

It had also added IndyCar's youngest team owner in George Michael Steinbrenner IV, who threw his hat into the Harding ring, stepping up from supporting Andretti's Indy Lights programme to join Mike Harding as owner. A huge boost considering the Steinbrenner family owns one of Major League Baseball's biggest names in the New York Yankees.

But the bit that really excited IndyCar was that two-car plan, the team placing its faith in 2018 Indy Lights title contenders Colton Herta and eventual Lights champion Patricio O'Ward.

When those intentions were first made clear at Sonoma in 2018, where Harding ran both young guns in what was effectively a toe in the water ahead of the '19 season, team president Brian Barnhart said: "I can see that running a couple of rookies might not be a scenario that a lot of teams would lick their chops over!

"And yeah, there would be times where it would be difficult. But I think the future for both guys is incredibly bright and so having feedback from two very talented drivers, however much they lack experience, would be better than running just one car.

"Pato and Colton have somewhat different backgrounds before they reached Indy Lights, and Pato probably had more experience, but Colton is so methodical and so precise.

"When we ran him at Portland, I was blown away. I've been around this sport for a long time and he still really impressed me by how precise and how detailed his feedback was and how calm he was."

That level of technical understanding - achieved via switching from USF2000 in 2014 to European racing including MSA Formula (now British F4) and various European Formula 3 categories - made Herta a compelling match to O'Ward's blistering pace honed on the US junior single-seater ladder.

Those critics changed their tune at Austin as both young drivers starred. Herta became IndyCar's youngest-ever race winner and returned Harding to its feel-good story of the pre-season

But the excitement soon dimmed and the storyline unravelled over the winter. Harding switched to Honda engines for 2019 - on the face of it a wise decision, as it brought the IndyCar team in line with Andretti. But it was also a risk after Honda had repeatedly warned it was on the limit in regards to how many engines it could supply.

It then transpired that Harding had only secured one full-time engine lease, which was for Herta, leaving O'Ward with an engine for only the Indianapolis 500 - and the team is still yet to secure the all-important title sponsor.

Unsurprisingly, O'Ward exited the team in pursuit of a proper race season, which he secured at the 11th hour at Carlin after talking to "every" IndyCar team he could.

When the news was made public, it was reported that Steinbrenner looked after Herta while Harding, allegedly requiring more sponsorship to help balance the books, was to steer O'Ward.

Social media erupted to praise O'Ward's undoubted talent and paint his defeated 2018 Lights title rival as lacking the same level of ability. O'Ward had made a stunning IndyCar debut at Sonoma compared to Herta's muted effort - the Mexican qualified fifth and finished ninth while Herta reeled from a pre-event crash and finished 20th.

But those critics changed their tune at Austin as both young drivers starred. Herta became IndyCar's youngest-ever race winner and returned Harding to its feel-good storyline of the pre-season.

Herta, the son of two-time CART race winner Bryan, who now calls strategy for Marco Andretti, demonstrated why Harding was so keen to place its faith in young talent.

He had shown an affinity for Austin right from the moment IndyCar rocked up at the Formula 1 venue for pre-season testing, almost topping both days of running, and it helped lay the foundations for his surprise win.

His experience from Indy Lights, where drivers are expected to make tyres last across multiple weekends, meant a race dictated by tyre management fell in his favour. It also proved that Indy Lights remained a viable training ground even when it struggled for numbers in 2018.

"I haven't really changed my driving style at all," Herta said. "The Indy Lights car is quite a bit different with the stiffer Cooper tyres.

"Their tyres are meant to last a 45-minute to an hour-long race. We last for 20 to 30 minute [stints]. We obviously have softer tyres than they do, produce a lot more grip. It's obviously a bit different driving style.

"Maybe my driving style suits IndyCar more than it did the Lights car. Maybe I just woke up one day and hit myself on the head and learned how to drive.

"I think it kind of helps that it's a low-grip [track]. I thrive a little bit more on low-grip situations. That's kind of what you need to get through the Esses fast. A lot of the guys that were struggling had a lot of understeer in the Esses.

"It was off to the races for me. I 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" Colton Herta

"You've got to be able to drive a loose car. Obviously, the grip level of the track didn't change much for some reason. I think the asphalt doesn't take rubber. The lap times actually didn't really change that much throughout the weekend."

Those factors proved crucial in the race-deciding moment when James Hinchcliffe, demonstrating the fallacy of the decision to not enforce track limits, punted Felix Rosenqvist into the wall while the pair ran off-track at Turn 19, with the resulting crash leading to a late caution.

Leading trio Will Power, Alexander Rossi and Scott Dixon had yet to pit, so the caution removed them from contention when they took new tyres for the final stint. That meant Herta cycled to the front ahead of Newgarden when the race resumed with 10 laps to go.

Not only was Herta against one of IndyCar's top guns, he was also on cold red-walled tyres - which he had little experience of - and at a severe push-to-pass disadvantage of 43 seconds to Newgarden's 127.

It had all the makings of a 'nice try', with the odds stacked against Herta, but he ended up stunning Newgarden with a blistering restart that left him untouchable all the way to the flag.

"[I was] not super confident [on the restart] to be honest," said Herta. I was looking at [Newgarden and third-placed Ryan Hunter-Reay] and they might get by me. I thought I could still manage a podium.

"The other thing is, I've never done a restart from cold tyres that were reds. In St Petersburg I only made my restarts on blacks. It felt a little unnatural. But the tyres came up to temperature really quickly. It wasn't really that big a problem.

"I got a really big jump. Newgarden got a little bit of wheelspin. It was off to the races for me. I 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."

Sure, there was the slice of luck that IndyCar's yellow-flag rules can often throw up, but Herta demonstrated an ability to think tactically, not panic and burn up his push-to-pass late on.

Even before that, Herta ran his conventional three-stop strategy comfortably, largely running in a lonely third as other rookies such as Rosenqvist battled tyre wear and fell back.

It was more than luck - this was a well-rounded performance with just one question mark lingering over wheel-to-wheel duelling, as there had been in Europe.

In MSA Formula, he was known for showing pace that kept him title contention alongside now-McLaren F1 driver Lando Norris and Red Bull F1 hopeful Dan Ticktum, but without the racecraft to regularly beat them [pictured above: 2015 Carlin MSA Formula line-up Petru Florescu, Norris and Herta].

At the age of 15, Herta was a genuine rival to Norris and Ticktum and ended up third in the championship after making progress in the second half of his campaign, taking three poles and winning four races.

He has yet to really duke it out toe-to-toe for IndyCar race wins, but his duel with Rossi showed both his underlying potential and then his rookie status.

Approaching midway in the race, not long after a stunning swoop around the outside had put Herta ahead following a brilliant out-lap after his first pitstop, it looked as though Rossi could demote Herta from the podium when the Harding driver locked up at Turn 1, wobbled as he readjusted, and allowed the Andretti Autosport driver to surge past.

"Huge congrats to Colton. I'm really happy for him - I know this means a lot to him" Patricio O'Ward

While Herta no doubt put that moment behind him as he took a swig of the 'bubbly', duels between IndyCar's top stars and up-and-comers were very much a theme of Austin, with O'Ward, in particular, coming out well.

In his first race for Carlin, he comfortably outperformed his experienced team-mate Max Chilton through the weekend.

Young Mexican O'Ward - whose team boss Trevor Carlin has compared him to Norris - crossed the line in eighth, despite losing time in each of his three pitstops. And it should have been sixth place if the ill-timed caution hadn't forced him into fuel-saving to make the finish, as he explained.

"We ran a clean race and we were right on pace, but after that yellow came out we needed one more lap under yellow to be able to push as hard as we wanted to," said O'Ward.

"I was having to save a lot of fuel to make it to the end, so it was just impossible to keep Marco [Andretti] and Takuma [Sato] behind me.

"It's nice to know that we have the pace and can be fighting up front with the veteran drivers."

He did so just five weeks after his IndyCar future looked in doubt, and now he's being credited as the driver who can push Carlin on after its solid debut year.

His potential and blistering one-lap pace have never been in doubt, and Carlin's proven young-driver development makes O'Ward an impressive long-term prospect.

O'Ward's character also shone through when he offered: "Huge congrats to Colton. I'm really happy for him - I know this means a lot to him."

It reminds us what a shame it is that they are not team-mates, battling side-by-side as IndyCar's most promising talents, and there's a lingering sadness that Harding's ambition did not pay off.

Herta seized his big moment, and O'Ward's recovery from a tumultuous off-season to land a strong seat must give IndyCar's elite something to worry about.