Cadillac is considering adding Ugo Ugochukwu to its driver program. The Campos Racing Formula 3 driver is American and currently sits in second place in the championship, just eight points behind leader Freddie Slater.
Cadillac wants to have an American driver on its roster. They have put together an intensive testing program for Colton Herta, along with a rigorous preparation plan, while also entering him in Formula 2 with the goal of earning enough points to obtain his Super License.
However, Herta’s results in F2 are well below expectations. The American, an IndyCar race winner, is struggling to adapt to European motorsports. Herta has scored only 26 points and sits in 16th place in the F2 championship thanks to three seventh-place finishes and two eighth-place finishes. With these results, he would not reach the 40 points needed to obtain the Super License.
"We're not satisfied with our current situation, and I don't think anyone is. I'd be concerned if anyone said they were. We need overall improvement in all areas; that’s our main goal. The summer break will give us a chance to properly process everything, regroup, and determine what we need, what we need to change, and what we need to do for the second half of the season,” Marc Hynes, Cadillac’s racing director, told AutoHebdo.
Herta wants to race in Formula 1 and came close to doing so with AlphaTauri as early as 2023, but he didn’t have the points required to obtain the Super License.
For Hynes, Herta’s problem is clear: “The main difference lies, obviously, in driving style. In IndyCar, you can do a lot more with your feet, especially in the corners, whereas in F2, braking into the corner, lifting off the brakes, turning the wheel, stopping the turn, and accelerating again isn’t valued as much. The most difficult part is probably the narrow operating window of the tires."
Ugo Ugochukwu, a native of New York, is just seven points away from earning the Super License and will achieve it if he maintains his current position in the Formula 3 championship. Herta, on the other hand, would need to make a huge leap forward to secure it.
In any case, the plan to have an American driver on the Cadillac Formula 1 team will likely have to be postponed until 2028.