Bosses of rival Formula 1 teams have urged the FIA not to relax its rules around superlicence points for drivers amid IndyCar star Colton Herta's links to the soon-to-be-vacant seat at AlphaTauri.
To race in F1, drivers need to hold a special licence. And to get hold of one, they have to meet certain requirements including a points system based on their best three results in whichever racing series they compete in.
Current rules require a driver to hold 40 points to qualify for a superlicence. Herta has been linked with F1, first as part of the doomed Andretti Autosport bid to buy Sauber last year and then after testing with McLaren, but will only hold 32 points by the start of 2023.
That total could be boosted if a team gave him some time in an F1 car during FP1 sessions this season, but he still would not have enough to meet the current threshold. There have been reports that the FIA are considering how force majeure could be used to help Herta’s F1 case, but not everyone is on board with that course of action.
"You have to keep in mind that when we made the decision about the superlicence and the points, it was to protect F1 and the drivers, to avoid to have 10 drivers coming in F1 with big budgets and no results in the past, and taking 50% of the grid," explained Alfa Romeo chief Frederic Vasseur.
"The reason of the decision was this one, we did it on purpose. And I think it was a good decision. Now it's another question to see if we have to attribute different points to IndyCar or to F3 or F2." He also revealed that his team had looked at Herta last year but couldn't go anywhere with it over a lack of superlicence points.
Haas boss Guenther Steiner added: "We have got rules and regulations, which we need to respect. If we don't respect our own rules and try to find ways around it, I don't think that's correct. We made them ourselves, we signed on to them, there is a governance, and we need to respect it.
"We had a very similar problem a few years ago [with Nikita Mazepin], and we didn't find the rules around it. We just worked with it and we made the points, so that is I think what you have to do in cases like this." Steiner also pointed out that other IndyCar drivers, including Alexander Rossi and Josef Newgarden, qualified for a superlicence without needing the rules to be changed or bent.
But McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl, who gave Herta the chance to test their 2021 car earlier this summer, is happy for the FIA to give him a leg up if needed. "[We are] absolutely open for some flexibility there in handing a guy like Colton the superlicence. At the end of it, what he has shown so far in his racing career, I have no doubt that he is absolutely able to compete in F1."
