The other IndyCar drivers who came of age at Road America

This writer still remembers how Trevor Carlin's eyes lit up when talking about Patricio O'Ward last spring. Carlin's speech pattern will easily flit between reflective and sardonic on all sorts of subjects, but get him talking about any of the truly ace drivers he's run over the past 25 years, and he can become garrulous.

He'd been just that way when discussing Lando Norris and Colton Herta, so when Carlin started describing O'Ward in similar terms, it was clear that he thought the 2018 Indy Lights champion was the real deal. O'Ward's startling IndyCar debut with Harding Racing at Sonoma that year - qualifying fifth and finishing ninth - hadn't been a one-off.

It was sad, therefore, when the newly Red Bull-backed Mexican flitted off to dabble in Formula 2 and Super Formula, and pleasing when he returned with a new-found commitment to U.S. open-wheel racing - and with the (sacred) name of McLaren on his firesuit driving for the newly-renamed McLaren Arrow SP squad.

Now, everyone knows what they thought they knew before: this kid is special. Last Sunday, the 21-year-old took pole ahead of Herta - his ex-Lights rival and last year's Road America polesitter - went on to lead the most laps, made no significant errors and came home a fine second having been passed by Felix Rosenqvist only on the penultimate lap. It was easy to empathise when O'Ward admitted to feeling a "mix of emotions".

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"I'm a little disappointed because I started on pole," he said. "After leading everything, you want to win, man!

"You want to execute from where you started because we led the whole thing, we didn't make any mistakes in the pit stop, we didn't lose any positions, every restart was perfect.

"I think we should be very proud of ourselves and what our group did today."

Herta's day didn't yield a podium, as the Andretti Harding Steinbrenner Autosport driver brought home fifth place. But that's a notable result in itself for a driver who last year scored three pole positions and two victories, but only one other top-five finish.

The lows counterbalancing the obvious highs weren't all of his own making, for there were mechanical failures at Barber Motorsports Park and the (double-points) Indianapolis 500, and he was the innocent party in a collision with Scott Dixon at Texas Motor Speedway. A decent finish in any one of those events would have earned him sixth overall in the championship and Rookie of the Year honours. Instead, he lost out to Rosenqvist, whose best results were a couple of runner-up finishes.

Still, Bryan Herta brought up his son to take responsibility for his actions, and Colton recognised that there were occasions where a strong finish had been lost through the ebullience of youth combined with a tendency to overreach for a result which wasn't really on. So, over the winter (and the dreary and pandemic-extended off-season), Herta adjusted his philosophy.

"Obviously it's frustrating, because I really want to finish on the podium and try to claw back points to Dixon, but you have to recognise that you can't always do it" Colton Herta

The result is that he's become Captain Consistent, earning seventh in Texas, fourth at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, and fifth in the two Road America rounds - which, in case you hadn't notice, add up to second in the championship, 54 points behind Dixon heading to this weekend's Iowa Speedway double-header (and nine ahead of O'Ward).

Perhaps therefore, it's not a surprise when Herta tells Autosport that yes, learning how to make the best of the days when a podium isn't possible is a specific target for him this season.

"Last year, if I had finished where I'd been running during the string of DNFs, I'd have been third in the championship," he observes. "So even if you're taking a ninth or tenth place finish and you feel terrible about it, it's a lot better in the long run than aiming for seventh and really risking a DNF.

"So settling down and only maximising what the car can really give on a weekend is important. We were only fifth place on race pace last weekend and that's what we got - two fifth places. Obviously it's frustrating, because I really want to finish on the podium and try to claw back points to Dixon, but you have to recognise that you can't always do it."

Equally, he recognises the times when he overdrove last year, and that missing out on the rookie of the year title wasn't purely down to outside forces.

"I think the best example was Mid-Ohio," he recalls. "We were really fast on our three-stop strategy, and I was running quite a way ahead of Ryan Hunter-Reay who went on to finish third.

"I think I should have been right there at the end with Felix, who was all over Dixon in the final laps. But the way I tried to pass [Sebastian] Bourdais, I took him out and spun myself out and took a through the grass. But actually there were numerous examples where I was trying to get a big result and it could have come to me more naturally and I was pushing too hard.

"I crashed at Pocono, took myself out at GP of Indy. You mentioned the clash with Dixon at Texas, and I definitely don't feel I was at fault, but equally, I won't put myself in that position again.

"But you know, it's good that these things happened so that I could learn from them. I stay a little bit more calm now, and if can't get by this guy without a major risk, it's very frustrating, but I'm a little more content with it."

While Herta enjoyed getting his feet under the table in IndyCar last year after making his debut with Harding in the same Sonoma 2018 round as O'Ward, his McLaren rival made just seven race starts with Carlin last year and suffered the blow of failing to qualify for the Indy 500. That considered, his race engineer Will Anderson says O'Ward "should be pleased with what he achieved".

"Obviously we had a very good car, taking pole and leading most of the race," Anderson told Autosport, "but Felix's car was better on the long runs."

Perhaps what most surprised onlookers was that on Saturday, O'Ward had done well to rise from 12th on the grid to finish eighth - ahead of two Penske cars and three Andretti Autosport cars - but there hadn't been a hint that he would be a solid victory threat the following day.

Anderson explains: "Saturday was tough being in dirty air as a result of an issue in qualifying that hampered us. I'm not sure we'd have been on pole, but we'd have been higher. As it was, we were mid-grid and that puts you somewhat on the back foot.

"[Will] Power was actually holding us up in that first stint but then he undercut us - everyone, pretty much - and used a ton of push-to-pass on his out lap so he went from 10th to third, to come out in front of the pack that we were stuck in."

Of course, pitting early meant that at least one stint would require a fair amount of fuel saving - something at which the likes of Power and Dixon reign supreme, whereas a driver with only 11 IndyCar races under his wheels still has plenty to learn. But Anderson insists that the Arrow McLaren SP team has worked hard to get O'Ward and rookie team-mate Oliver Askew on point with that requirement.

"It's been great to see that if there's something he needs to work on, he'll do that. When we give him homework, he goes away and does it and learns very quickly. Everyone on the team has been very impressed with him" Will Anderson on Patricio O'Ward

"We've focused on it with Pato and Oliver in preseason testing and on the simulator," he says. "For where they're at in their career, they're honestly quite good at it."

Still, for now it remains one of the more subtle shades on O'Ward's palette, whereas his outright speed is altogether more strident. Anderson admits he saw that from their very first test together at Sebring last November, but says O'Ward is as impressive off track as on it.

"It's very obvious straight away that Pato's a very naturally talented driver," he comments, "but it's also been great to see that if there's something he needs to work on, he'll do that.

"When we give him homework, he goes away and does it and learns very quickly. Everyone on the team has been very impressed with him and Oliver about how much they're prepared to work to improve themselves and us.

"With two new drivers for this year, obviously it's been a transition for the team, too. After five years working with James [Hinchcliffe], I got used to how he talked and what he meant by what he said, so obviously building a similar type of relationship with Pato takes a little time; I've got to learn how he describes what he's feeling and understand it. But considering the limited testing in the off-season, and now the quick schedules of each race weekend, I think we've honestly done a good job of familiarising ourselves with each other."

Unlike O'Ward, Herta has had the benefit of enormously experienced team-mates to trade information with. Last season, Harding Steinbrenner Racing was a separate entity from Andretti Autosport even if the two squads were closely affiliated and pooled their data. With Herta looking so quick so often, there were suspicions that perhaps he and his engineers weren't being entirely transparent with team-mates Hunter-Reay and Alexander Rossi. But in 2020, Herta's #88 is officially a fifth Andretti Autosport car, and there is no doubting that the potency of the Herta/Nathan O'Rourke [engineer] combination is genuine.

"We were definitely completely open set-up-wise last year," says Herta, "so I was very confident about my pace going into this year, how I'd compare with Alex and Ryan. It was just a case of me cutting out the mistakes. I didn't expect to be outperforming them but I definitely knew it was possible, and I didn't expect to be ahead of them in the championship, but I'm aware that they've had mechanical issues which makes me look a little better!

"I actually think me, Ryan and Alex are really close on pace and on any given weekend it comes down to the changes we make to the car. Like, I don't think we've started any of the races so far with exactly the same setups, so whoever's got the best balanced car is going to be the one who looks quickest that day, because we're so closely matched."

Ask if the car's behavior with the aeroscreen has driven the trio closer together or further apart in terms of their handling preferences, Herta doesn't believe it's altered much.

"I'd say it's pretty much how it was last year," he says. "Ryan and myself are very close on setup, whereas Alex is more drastic and you can tell that just from watching him. His driving style is very outrageous, very on-the-limit all the time.

"Ryan and I are a little more conservative, we like the car a little tighter. Alex likes the car looser and can handle it, whereas maybe Ryan and I don't feel as comfortable doing that."

Having finished behind team-mates Zach Veach (Texas), Hunter-Reay (Road America 1) and Rossi (Road America 2), Herta is honest enough to admit that he "definitely still has work to do on race pace". But few would disagree that the team as a whole needs to step up in that regard. The important thing is that by reaching the end of the races, he's got that much more data and feedback to pore over.

"The aeroscreen has caused so much bigger a change than I expected - than a lot of people expected," he says. "I think we're still on the back foot a little bit, but we're very close."

By contrast, Anderson says O'Ward (pictured below on debut in 2018) and Askew's relative inexperience with the pre-aeroscreen IndyCar is a positive factor, with fewer preconceived notions of how the car 'should' behave or how it felt without the extra weight.

"In the car, he has excess mental capacity even when he's on the limit, so he can come back to the pits and recall what he's feeling and what the car's doing on this corner or that corner" Will Anderson on Patricio O'Ward

"That's definitely been a help," he says. "It reminds me of when Robbie [Wickens, now Arrow McLaren SP's driver advisor] showed up in 2018, the first year with the current universal aerokit.

"He had only run a few laps with the high-downforce manufacturer aerokit from the year before, so whereas some of the drivers when they first tested the new kit were saying 'Whoah! This isn't what I've been used to; I want this and that; I want the car to feel how it used to feel', Robbie was just, 'This is what I've got, this is how it is, I'll go and make the most of it.'

"I think that's been the case for our drivers this year: they don't have that mental limitation where they have to unlearn things."

Anderson adds that O'Ward's feedback is "very good", which only helps matters.

"In the car, he has excess mental capacity even when he's on the limit, so he can come back to the pits and recall what he's feeling and what the car's doing on this corner or that corner," he says.

"Even a bit of what he feels the car should be doing. OK, as a rookie he's not going to be able to say, 'Hey, I think what we need here is a damper change', but he's very good at describing what the car is doing and the feelings he's getting. I'm very impressed with him and Oliver from that point of view, considering how new they are."

But ask Anderson what O'Ward's greatest qualities are, and he doesn't hesitate.

"He's just very quick and able to extract the maximum from the car," he says. "I don't think the pole at Road America was a fluke.

"With him and Oliver pushing each other, and we on the team side making a big push with the aero understanding, I think we can expect more poles from them.

"There are always things we'll continue to work on with both drivers, areas where they don't have a lot of experience, such as pitlane time. We want to minimise the amount of time spent in there, but maximise what they do with it, and they've both been getting much, much better.

"But all the raw ingredients are there. Honestly, it's an exciting time to be at Arrow McLaren SP."

Anderson's optimism contrasts with a lingering frustration from Herta, who compares his team's podium-less run to "like being on a treadmill and there's a doughnut in front of you that's so close but just out of reach".

"This year, it was somewhat deflating - and I know I looked disappointed after the second race - that we qualified P2 but just didn't have the speed necessary in race trim," he says.

"But cooling down from it, I'm happy to finish both races in the top five. I just wish we'd gained more points on a day when Dixon had a bad race."

One of the key areas where Herta progressed in 2019 was in understanding how to nurse his tyres. At Road America last year, where he qualified on pole, Herta burned up his tyres to quickly and slipped to seventh at the finish, admitting that "strategy-wise we didn't maximise what our speed had shown was possible".

"It was immaturity that cost me, really. I had Dixon and Power right on me, and I was having to make a pretty big fuel-save number, and so I was under a lot of pressure when I should have just let them pass" Colton Herta

Some would say that after converting pole at Portland to a fourth-place finish (albeit dutifully following championship aspirant Rossi) his biggest leap in this department came in the final three weeks of the season, culminating in a dominant win in the finale at Laguna Seca (below), one of the most abrasive track surfaces on the calendar.

But Herta himself has a slightly different perspective.

"At Portland last year, I'd say it wasn't so much about tyres," he says. "I think it was immaturity that cost me, really. I had Dixon and Power right on me, and I was having to make a pretty big fuel-save number, and so I was under a lot of pressure when I should have just let them pass.

"I'd have been much better off, because in the end Dixon had mechanical troubles anyway. But anyway, that's what I learned.

"Going into Laguna, I understood a little bit better, had a little less pressure on myself because I was in the mindset of, 'If you have to, you can let them go'. That made me calmer, I made fewer mistakes, didn't lock up the tyres and damage them, and we went out and won."

That new-found maturity is reflected in Herta's goals for this season.

"At the beginning of the year, I said I wanted to go to the final round with a realistic chance of winning the championship," he recalls. "Six months on, I feel the same way. And it's definitely possible to claw back big points as we saw last year when Dixon had engine failures during races.

"He needs some bad luck and when it happens we also need to be on our A game to take advantage, and that means winning races. I think we need to be a little more aggressive to win the championship."

When the time is right, that aggression will come naturally enough. While his team is still seeking that final one percent of race day pace, what Herta's doing currently is serving his cause just fine.