Colton Herta was knocking on the door of winning an IndyCar race again for over two years before finally kicking it open this past weekend on the Streets of Toronto.
Prior to scoring his eighth career IndyCar victory on Sunday, the 24-year-old California native hadn’t won since May 2022 on the Indianapolis road course – 41 races ago.
It was a masterclass performance all weekend by Herta, who was fastest in every practice session and stormed to pole before leading 81 of 85 laps en route to directing an Andretti Global 1-2 over team-mate Kyle Kirkwood on the 11-turn, 1.786-mile street circuit.
When asked by Motorsport.com if the emotions were more relief than anything else, Herta agreed.
“Yes,” Herta replied. “Just finally get it done. I don't think I had any self-doubt in myself, the team, or anybody that we're working with, that we couldn't win again or anything like that.
“But it is difficult to take weekend after weekend. It starts compounding into years. It's very difficult to be happy about a performance when it's not a win after that long of a time.”
His victory elevates Herta to fourth in the championship standings and adds to a respectable campaign that now features four podiums through 12 points-paying rounds.
With five rounds to go, four of which are on ovals, he sits 57 points off the championship lead, currently held by reigning and two-time IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou (411-354).
And Herta believes the long-awaited win could spark a late push to make a run at Chip Ganassi Racing’s leading man.
“It's possible,” Herta said. “In testing we were quite a bit better than Alex at Milwaukee.
“That's not to say that they're not going to find more speed when we go back. That's a big points weekend. That's basically double points with two races there.
“We've had success at Portland. We were on to basically win there last year until we got a speeding penalty. We've had really good cars at Gateway. Qualified second there.
“There's a lot of tracks that we've had success at in the past coming up. Yeah, I have never put my head down and said the championship is over at any point just because you never know in IndyCar.”
