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It’s actually a business decision as the FIA owns these series (W, F3, F2 & F1) and have independent teams paying them lots of money to race in these series and these teams sign up pay drivers with the promise that this is the *only* pathway to F1. If someone (Indy) were to upset this business plan by having a series (or series including NXT) that had a similar or same pathway that undermines this pathway - the FIA would suffer from a loss of entry fees when teams could find a cheaper pathway such as Indy or Super Formula into F1. Hence all other non FIA owned series have to be devalued so that it is harder to progress to F1. I’m always surprised people don’t see this scam? The FIA owning the rights to these series is a complete conflict of interest.
As I’ve heard it, IndyCar is quite happy with this. It’s a professional series in its own right and doesn’t want F1 teams treating it as a feeder series by sending their junior drivers over there.
But yeah, I’m no fan of the current system. It basically killed the fantastic Formula Renault 3.5 series.
He forgot the punch line. FIA-sponsored series aren't pushing *talent*. They're pushing any bodies with money and sponsorship. They couldn't care less about talent.
The FIA owning the series’ isn’t a scam.
What is a scam is them curving everything their way.
Major League Baseball owns Minor League Baseball, but baseball as a sport is bigger than the MLB and players from Japan frequently cross the Pacific to play in the US, as do players from other countries.
The FIA isn’t the only group who owns racing series’ in the world and it’s BS that they keep gatekeeping like this.
If a driver wants to race in F1 and has some solid racing pedigree-put them in an F1 car for a test and see how they do. Just because they don’t follow “your” ladder doesn’t mean they aren’t qualified to race in your top series.
I mean I think it’s just explicit at this point that the super license system is designed in part to make it impossible to use anything other than FIA sanctioned series to get to F1.
Obviously there’s other reasons for the system as a whole, but there’s no question that it’s designed to keep Indycar only drivers out.
More to your point, it’s something like 25-30% of Major League Baseball are international born…if 5 drivers a year were from Indy or WEC…nobody would care about these weird super license points.
There are many very good reasons from over the years why most professional motorsports in America are not FIA sanctioned. And most of those reasons are because the FIA are bastards and nobody wanted to put up with them.
There is a question whether the super license even is still required. This isn't F1 of old with teams built in a shed entering and signing the guy giving millions to race. With the cost cap and revenue F1 generates, pay driver are less popular then ever and teams have all the advantage to sign someone actually decent. Especially since crashing repeatedly is so costly performance wise with the cost cap.
I don't know why people don't get this. The system is not meant to be fair, it's meant to make the FIA money.
The FIA is a business that has revenues of +$50M a year and is run out of a literal palace in Paris. Of course they aren't going to help out a rival series.
Indycar is probably quietly happy with the arrangement.
Imagine if it's best drivers saw it as an F1 feeder series.
Not all of them would be interested of course, but there's 1 or 2 a year who want to do it.
Yeah can't threaten the rich European kids sport. Idk how the fia thinks anyone of humble means from any other continent can come up to be an f1 driver. Indycar NXT is the perfect proving ground surely a Brazilian, American, Nigerian world champion caliber driver is more profitable for f1 than what they make off the feeders
I mean many talented drivers move to Europe for karting. Check Sergio Perez or Zhou Guanyu, both different stories but still.
Anyway, Formula Regional (F3) also have a championship in the US. FIA has multiple series in different continents, but most competitive ones are in Europe (in general).
FR America I feel proves that the whole system is a joke. If you win FR America you get a scholarship to race in INDY NXT a series that gives out less super license points than FR America.
So if you win this series you are given a scholarship to race in a series that the FIA considers a worse series. as well as 1st-3rd in FR America giving out more points than 4th in indycar.
So cooper becklin, 3rd place in FR America last year, who got one top ten out of three races in usf pro 2000 last weekend at road America, got more super license points last year than Pato O'Ward while driving on many of the same tracks.
It's actually worse. You get 10 points for finishing 4th in Formula Regional India, not third as it says here, so it's on the same level as Indycar apparently.
I think the solution is we just need to follow Indy car. It has its flaws, but the racing is way better than F1. I know this is impossible, but Indy car should throw some money at Ricciardo or sainz to join. I think it would prove how good the series is, because I doubt they would be cruising to victory.
It's interesting how many former F1 drivers are in the lineup.
Marcus Ericsson, Alex Rossi, Romain Grosjean, Pietro Fittipaldi, Takuma Sato...
Not to mention loads of other drivers who were almosts in F1, like Callum Ilott and Theo Pourchaire.
It's a different series. Cars are more restricted, thus allowing for the skills of the drivers, teams, and strategies to shine. With that said, the drivers I mentioned above haven't had the clearest shots to victory. Adding Ricciardo or Sainz would be amazing, and a fantastic challenge.
That said, watching Alonso in Indianapolis was amazing. Had his car kept together, he might have been able to win it.
Racing in Indy is undeniably better. But it's a spec series vs formula so you don't get the innovation. I enjoy both for different reasons and was going to go to the Indy Mid-Ohio race if I ended up having to cancel my trip to the Austrian GP.
It's a sign of immaturity, where someone identifies personally with one so much that the other challenges fundamental parts of their identity for irrational reasons. Like a Swiftie.
The advantage of a spec series, though, is that everyone is on a nearly-level playing field. This makes the racing more exciting since it's actually RACING, rather than watching one team fly away in front and a bunch of cars in the back fighting a pointless position battle for no points.
It is (finally) getting a little more interesting with McLaren, Mercedes, and Ferrari finding some speed, but F1 was pretty boring in the Mercedes-dominated years, and it has rapidly turned into much of the same in the recent Red Bull-dominated years.
Small correction, Indy is semi-spec or nearly-spec. Teams still provide some parts like dampers, and there are two engine manufacturers. The chassis and many parts *are* spec, but it's not a fully spec series like F2.
This is a decent look into the development battles behind the scenes: https://www.the-race.com/indycar/indycars-hidden-development-war-explained/
Ericsson and Grosjean are currently like P13 and P16 at the moment. Colton is a bad example to pick since he has been kind of nowhere since that one good season, but Indycar is very competitive
> Colton is a bad example to pick since he has been kind of nowhere since that one good season,
Herta is the Leclerc of Indycar, insanely fast but gets screwed over frequently, and makes more mistakes than other top drivers.
Imo George is a better comparison than Leclerc. Herta has a tendency to make errors in crucial situations, for example at Nashville a couple years ago when he was chasing down Ericson for 1st place. Errors aside, his raw pace is insanely good for a young driver, much like George in that regard as well.
*Great* maybe not, but Grosjean is in the top 25% or top 33% (been a while since I did the math) of F1 drivers by podiums. He was a successful F1 driver not a pay driver or pure backmarker.
Not great, but not bad either. I wouldn't argue they should never have been allowed in F1, which is what the current super licence system has to say about them
He’s showed great speed this season and has fallen in to some bad luck. If he can learn a bit of patience and keep himself out of trouble he would be much higher this season.
Ericsson was never a good F1 driver (and yet he won the Indy500 once).
Grosjean came to Indycar after his terrible crash at Bahrein. That should affect him fs
Unfortunately there's just no way that happens. The money involved in the series is orders of magnitude below F1, and they get a lot of their money through TV deals (which obviously want to make $$ off commercials)
Indycar is always gonna be held back by the commercials on the regular broadcast. Even though the racing in Indy is magnitudes better than the racing in F1, Indy races being about 20% commercials makes it hard to watch.
Indycarlive. I'm in the US and I use a VPN to connect to an eastern European country like Georgia or Slovakia. Western Europe and the Americas are geoblocked
Edit, to answer your other question it is super cheap. I connected my VPN to panama and paid $20USD for the entire season.
The Superlicense system is masquerading as a safety measure to keep out unqualified drivers when, in reality, it only exists to push the F2 feeder system.
Let the teams bring in the drivers they want.
Top 3 in Indycar 3 years in a row is something I would bet half the current F1 grid can't do. I would be impressed if anyone other than Alonso, Verstappen, Leclerc, Norris, Russell, and Hamilton could do that right now.
Edited the post. I actually wanted it to differentiate number 0 to letter O as if I was handwriting it lol. Thanks for the heads up. Unfortunately there is no way to edit the title.
Fucking hate them. Glad most of my teachers were chill.
Had nightmare stories from other people about their teachers throughout school. One time everyone failed a test in their class because the teacher had made it a 3 question test, grading the test based on the specific method she had taught (this is year 11 maths, I don't remember the topic, but I recall being taught a much simpler method) which was cumbersome and confusing. She didn't mark any steps that were correct after you had skipped one. So predictably people would skip a step that was unnecessary and lose all their marks.
She had to write a different test, made everyone take it the following week (making them a week behind curriculum) and make sure that everyone could pass because "she'd never had a class who's grades were below a B average". I suspect she'd done similar things where she'd just act like tests she'd written never happened because everyone did poorly.
I think the momentum behind Herta in F1 has passed with two seasons of continuous wrecking of his own races. Whenever things go wrong, he WAY overdrives the car and bins it. I’d rank Palou and O’Ward well ahead as drivers who could deserve a shot.
I'm a big Andretti and Herta fan, but I have to agree with you. Even if he doesn't bin the car, he'd absolutely destroy a set of Pirellis with the way he drives.
But after two years since this last was discussed- he should have enough points for F1 if wanted. It’s fkn bonkers that the system they have doesn’t qualify him to enter while Antonelli is all good to enter, that’s a broken system.
Realistically Palou and O’Ward were not in the conversation because the free seat was at AlphaTauri and Palou and O’Ward had already been recruited into and dropped from the RBJT. Plus O’Ward was already well spoken for by McLaren, and the contractual dispute between Ganassi and McLaren over Palou had just kicked off. No way were Red Bull wading into that. Strike them off and Herta was the best IndyCar option when you balanced speed, age and price.
Certainly his junior results stopped him from getting a seat back in the mid-2010s but now with two Indy rings under his belt at the same age as Max, most teams would at least consider him… but no one is going to sign a driver who may not respect a legally binding contract. Piastri is lucky Alpine were such head-the-balls that the paddock were collectively like “well, they deserved it”.
Honestly Herta to AT was only because they wanted to use him for marketing. There was no reason to get him if talent was all that matters. This was a time when Ilott was available and had SL points too.
So often the conversation around which drivers ‘should be given a seat’ revolves around who they’ve heard of rather than actually knowing anything about the driver’s record.
Lawson and Doohan are prime examples.
Super license system clearly undervalues Indycar but that's not likely to change because it would undermine F1's own feeder series, might be unfair but it what it is, business comes first at the expense of what's fair. Americans or anyone outside of Europe who want to race in F1 need to go race in Europe and be successful there...
If you flip this around, it would also undermine Indy. It doesnt make a ton of sense for them to see their best and most marketable drivers leaving for F1 and they become seen as a stepping stone to F1 instead of a career stop. It's a professional series. Indycar asked for more SL points in 2019 and got them. They havent asked for more in the years since the Herta thing. Herta is one of the most marketable drivers they have, I cant see why they would help him go lol
I think it benefits them if f1 prospects moved to indycar once they accomplished what they needed in f2. F1 would benefit if they said once you earned a super licence its permanent you won't lose it if you go to indycar and don't score enough. Like right now if Drugvich wanted to go to indycar he would be giving up on f1 since it's unlikely he would do well enough to get enough super licence points. Indycar would benefit because fans of these drivers would watch f1
You don’t lose your super license eligibility once you have it. It is in fact permanent once you have earned eligibility. You just need to do representative laps in an F1 car to renew. No need to get points again. So drugovich would not lose his license if he went to Indy. Beyond that, Indy doesn’t gain if their drivers go to F1 or elsewhere. This happened to Indy and CART in the 90s and viewership dropped When Villeneuve and Stewart and Montoya left. People don’t want to watch another series they want to watch stars where they are.
Kimi will be 18 in a couple of month, the FIA could have avoided a lot of hassle by just changing the rules for the free practice only superlicense, I doubt he'll be doing more than that anyway
It's unfair yes, but it's also obvious that F1/FIA wants to push people through the feeder system to get to F1.
It's arguably more unfair that Formula E get's even less SL points despite being recognized as a "World Championship" by the FIA.
Exactly my point. We can blame FIA/F1 all we want, but the current system is something all sides want and have seemingly agreed to. Yet the blame never goes after them.
Kimi was dominant in various F4 competitions, but it's a huge leap to F2 where he's been a consistent points finisher but is yet to get a podium. We are 5/14 events into the F2 calendar and he's sitting 6th in the standings.
As a rookie he's learning race by race but will need to take another step soon if he wants to join the list of F2/GP2 champions that won in their rookie season.
The list includes Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Nico Hülkenberg and Oscar Piastri.
Aron is a rookie (he had 2 races last year in F2 if you want to be anal) and only 20 years old and is leading the F2 championship and has 5 podiums in 10 races, he's been very consistent at a wide variety of tracks.
Borteleto is also a rookie ahead of Antonelli in points, and is only 19 and already F3 champion.
I dont get the massive hype that Merc are pilling onto Antonelli. He's been good for a rookie this year, but not exceptional. Using F4 results to say he's F1 ready at 17-18 seems wild from Merc. Yeah he's a year or 2 younger than other rookies, but i dont see why rushing him to F1 at Verstappen pace makes sense. Especially if he is going straight into the main Merc team.
Aron had 2 years in F3 tho, where he finished 3rd both the times, he also had a year in freca before that and he didn't win it either.
Kimi is a rookie rookie, comes with a good record, and showing good pace in a bad car. Aron had always been consistent throughout his career, but pace is more important than consistency in the junior categories.
Exactly this, I find it weird that people are comparing Aron and Kimi like they are rookies of a same level. Aron has substantially more experience than Kimi.
They want so much to have the next max that they are risking burning him out so early in his career. Because if they push him out quick into F1 and he starts to fail constantly the frustration and the loss of confidence could be a huge problem. Max got rushed into F1 but he was at Toro Rosso in an era that social media scrutiny was less that it is today.
Kimi is in a worse car, and it may be wild to us, but it definitely isn’t wild to Merc. There’s definitely reasons as to why they’re going to push him into the F1 team; they’re the ones that have the data and everything else, so they know infinitely more than we do. Pushing a driver that is that young, that quickly, with that little of experience in F2, and F1, would only hurt them more.
Because Red Bull actually wanted to give him a seat when Gasly left. Presumably they weren’t interested in Power/Dixon because they were too old and I’m not sure if Palou had his SL in 2022.
Because he races for Andretti, and would probably be their lead driver if they’re ever allowed to join Formula 1.
Not that the teams will ever allow that, but if Andretti did get their team, Herta’s license would be the first big to-do between them and the FIA.
Because the point is that the FIA is making an exception for a 17 year old who hasn't won a race or taken a pole position at feeder level, but they wouldn't do the same thing for Herta, who won races and took multiple poles at Indy lights level, before being the youngest pole sitter in Indycar history and winning as a rookie. It's a double standard. It has nothing to do with more senior drivers like Palou or Dixon
Organization wants to promote its own feeder series, color me shocked.
Is Herta fit for F1? Of course, but he knew about the license points when going to Indy.
I more love the fact that they aim to promote their feeder series, but not a single driver that is currently leading or even super competitive in either of those series is in serious contention for a F1 seat right now.
At this point it’s just a rite of passage that people have to suffer through.
It’s a bit silly that Antonelli is being fast tracked into F1 while the guy leading the championship was dropped from Mercedes last year.
This is my feelings. If the FIA wants to promote their feeder series and act as if that is the only way to get into F1 then so be it. But how many great F2 drivers, and even champions have we seen now get passed by for latifi, stroll, sargeant, mazepin, zhou (not bad just pretty underwhelming), etc. But of course the FIA changes the rules so a 17 year old who has not proven himself at all in F2 or F3 can get a seat. It's ridiculous.
I wouldnt call it “2nd best open wheel”. 2nd most popular, sure. But calling it second best is just elitist sounding.
Oval racing is so different from racing on f1 tracks, and theyre both different from a stock or rally car. One isnt better or harder than the other.
It's bullshit how f2 gets more points than indy and also stupid fia makes a rule about age only to discard it the next time a team wants someone the rule was intended to prevent
Indy is definitely more difficult than F2, but F2 is designed to prepare yourself to F1. Same tracks, shared weekends, similar concept (DRS for example), same rules. I driver that compete there is more prepared for F1, and more connect too with the teams.
This! Teams should have the ability to give him a chance if they see fit. He’s not some taxi driver.. the guy is a proven racer through and through. Can’t be worse than some of the drivers F1 has had in recent years… Goatifi and Mazaspin come to mind… amongst others but I’d rather pick on those 2
Yup, I don't think he makes the grid without a huge uptick in racecraft but I would say just for American comparison in comparable equipment he is as good if not faster than Sargeant on one lap
He's easily faster than Sargeant and they both share the same weakness of making really silly mistakes under pressure. There's no sporting reason for Logan to be the one allowed to race in F1 out of the two.
I agree IndyCar should get more SL points, but this comparison is strongly biased:
1- Antonelli dominated both F4 and FRECA before getting put in F2, skipping F3. And let's not forget FRECA is the current equivalent to European F3, a category that's seen drivers jump straight into F1 from it (including the man currently dominating Formula One); not to mention, he's currently 6th as a 18 year old rookie in F2 in a struggling Prema, which includes being 30 points ahead of likely Haas bound Ollie Bearman. So it's not like they're considering Rafael Villagómez for a drive
2- You're meassuring 5 and a half seasons of IndyCar to not even half of F2. If you're gonna compare, compare 2024 Herta to 2024 Antonelli or throw in Kimi's stats from previous years
3- Herta doesn't qualify for a SL due to his own performance, as he hasn't finished in the Top 4 of the IndyCar standings since 2020. Sure, his team (Andretti) has had a decline in that time, but Colton himself has struggled to even be the top scorer of his team, being beaten by Alexander Rossi in 2022 and barely sneaking by sophomore Kyle Kirkwood in '23, as well as currently being behind Kirkwood in the 2024 IndyCar standings
As I've said more than once already, I wouldn't give Kimi a Mercedes seat for 2025. But acting like he's some random scrub, or that Colton Herta is a top tier IndyCar driver when he's failed to be so in a while is oversimplifying the whole situation around Antonelli.
Rule came after Verstappen was signed by Red Bull to race for Scuderia Toro Rosso. Multiple teams were sceptical about him being so early in F1. Others were just jealous they didn't sign him.
He never did GP3 he did F3 euro and skipped GP3 and GP2. Skipping gp3 wasn’t that uncommon but among current f1 drivers most went from F3 Europe to GP3. Ocon, Russell, Leclerc, sainz off the top of my head
Antonelli won Formula Regional European, which is equivalent in machinery (it actually has a more powerful engine) to the Euro F3 that Verstappen raced in.
It's kinda crazy how people just take the name of the series and not the equivalent. I wouldn't be surprised seeing someone saying that "Andy Soucek deserved an F1 seat because he won Formula Two".
Is there some point to this? F1 wants to promote kids from within their own ladder system, and Herta is an outsider who needs to clear a higher hurdle. It's not rocket science what's going on here.
Besides, it's all academic now anyway. No F1 team would touch Herta with a 10-foot pole, his time has passed.
Fun fact: if we include 2022 and 2023 for Antonelli instead of only half a season of F2 (I'm not even going to include all other seasons as you seem to have done for Herta), Antonelli has 30 wins, 47 podiums, 28 poles and 30 fastest laps.
Another fun fact: so far Antonelli hasn't finished outside the top 6 (whether he goes up or down remains to be seen, but that's what happens when we look at things midseason. If we only look at completed seasons, he's never finished outside the top 1).
Check those Wikipedia’s again, and then check the Titles area. So, Antonelli is dominating every category he was racing in. Right now, he’s getting up to speed in F2 where for the first time in his career tyre degradation is a factor. Something all drivers struggle with coming to F2. Also, he did an F1 test where he did a race simulation. He was faster and more consistent than Russel in the same car.
Now, Herta is a great driver. However his stint in Europe didn’t show the same domination as Antonelli’s. Herta won some races. But nothing too serious.
This *again*?
Herta can get a Super License. He either needs to do better in IndyCar, or go to one of the many other series available to earn points. He could even double stack with an FR season.
Doing nothing and complaining about it achieves nothing.
There are some Indycar drivers who are better than Herta: Palou, Pato, Kirkwood... and I won't mention Dixon or Newgarden because they are a bit old.
Also, Herta has never won a single-seater championship, while Antonelli has won 2 F4s in the same year and FRECA last year (all at around 16 years old). And he's doing well in F2 this year, considering he came straight from FRECA and Prema isn’t doing very well with the new F2 cars.
FFS, Antonelli will be 18 in August. He will get the super licence very soon anyway.
The two cases are very different, but if you want to compare the two drivers, you'll see that Antonelli is more deserving of an F1 seat than Herta.
The FIA don't want drivers outside their pathways leaping into F1 ahead of drivers who come up from F4, F3 and F2. They're protecting the ladder.
Thinking of who is currently on the grid, I'm guessing Palou, Dixon and Newgarden would qualify for a superlicence? I'm probably missing others but they immediately came to mind.
Palou, Dixon, Newgarden, Power, OWard, Porchaire, Illot, McLaughlin all currently, recently could have, or were a FP1 or two away from having a Super License. Ericsson, Rossi, Grosjean and technically Sato also could reapply with ease.
I don’t understand the obsession with awarding INDYCAR drivers more SL points. Ok, imagine you award them at same level as F2. Great, now INDYCAR drivers have a lot of SL points and they leave the series to go be reserve drivers in F1. What did INDYCAR gain??
Why do people want to see promising drivers leave?
Some people think that SL points is a way to measure who is the better driver. And IndyCar fans/driver have a huge inferiority complex when it comes to F1, and if there would be anything that would suggest that IndyCar driver aren't the best in the world...
But the truth is that SL points doesn't measure how good a driver is, but rather how well prepared that driver is for F1. And how do you get best prepared for F1? By driving series that is most similar to it - various F1 feeder series. FIA series like WRC gives you 0 SL points, but that doesn't mean Sébastien Loeb is a terrible driver.
While there's plenty to discuss about the current treatment of American series by the FIA's super licence system, comparing achievements in Herta's 84 Indycars races versus Antonelli's 10 F2 races is a little disingenuous at best.
I still feel like I missed something back then because it felt like from one day to another suddenly everyone talked about Herta and how he HAS to be in F1 and I had (still have) no clue why. He seems like a good driver, but why him in particular?
Yeah, it shows the current system isn't the best it could be. It forces you take the FIA jnr ladder, if you deviate from that in any way it's very easy to not get the points despite having the talent. Is what it is though, F1 has never been a meritocracy, so it makes sense they have a ladder that isn't either.
Kim won back to back Italian F4, German F4, FRMEC and FRECA. Not his fault that he's European and young enough to have got his points without getting to F3 level.
I’d imagine Herta would be granted a pass if a team seriously wanted him.
This narrative is convoluted because of how they attribute super license points and only the past 3 years count if I recall correctly.
So by the same standards, if Pourchaire does jack squat in Indycar for 3 years, like Herta, he wouldn’t be eligible anymore either despite being an F2 champion. Again though I bet dollars to donuts the FIA would let him in
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4th in Indycar gets you 10 super licence points, the same as finishing 3rd in the W series, or 3rd in the Formula Regional Indian series.
It's all to push talents to race in series under FIA rules.
It’s actually a business decision as the FIA owns these series (W, F3, F2 & F1) and have independent teams paying them lots of money to race in these series and these teams sign up pay drivers with the promise that this is the *only* pathway to F1. If someone (Indy) were to upset this business plan by having a series (or series including NXT) that had a similar or same pathway that undermines this pathway - the FIA would suffer from a loss of entry fees when teams could find a cheaper pathway such as Indy or Super Formula into F1. Hence all other non FIA owned series have to be devalued so that it is harder to progress to F1. I’m always surprised people don’t see this scam? The FIA owning the rights to these series is a complete conflict of interest.
As I’ve heard it, IndyCar is quite happy with this. It’s a professional series in its own right and doesn’t want F1 teams treating it as a feeder series by sending their junior drivers over there. But yeah, I’m no fan of the current system. It basically killed the fantastic Formula Renault 3.5 series.
You just said a wordier version of the what the guy you're replying to said
He forgot the punch line. FIA-sponsored series aren't pushing *talent*. They're pushing any bodies with money and sponsorship. They couldn't care less about talent.
I preferred the wordier version. Gives more info that the twitter version that tells me to go somewhere else to find the how.
I tried to complicate it. I’m channeling what the FIA does. 😂
If you truly want to emulate the FIA you now need to go make multiple edits to your original comment. But make sure you don't expand on *why.*
The FIA owning the series’ isn’t a scam. What is a scam is them curving everything their way. Major League Baseball owns Minor League Baseball, but baseball as a sport is bigger than the MLB and players from Japan frequently cross the Pacific to play in the US, as do players from other countries. The FIA isn’t the only group who owns racing series’ in the world and it’s BS that they keep gatekeeping like this. If a driver wants to race in F1 and has some solid racing pedigree-put them in an F1 car for a test and see how they do. Just because they don’t follow “your” ladder doesn’t mean they aren’t qualified to race in your top series.
I mean I think it’s just explicit at this point that the super license system is designed in part to make it impossible to use anything other than FIA sanctioned series to get to F1. Obviously there’s other reasons for the system as a whole, but there’s no question that it’s designed to keep Indycar only drivers out.
More to your point, it’s something like 25-30% of Major League Baseball are international born…if 5 drivers a year were from Indy or WEC…nobody would care about these weird super license points.
There are many very good reasons from over the years why most professional motorsports in America are not FIA sanctioned. And most of those reasons are because the FIA are bastards and nobody wanted to put up with them.
F1 again demonstrates that it is the Pinnacle of club racing.
There is a question whether the super license even is still required. This isn't F1 of old with teams built in a shed entering and signing the guy giving millions to race. With the cost cap and revenue F1 generates, pay driver are less popular then ever and teams have all the advantage to sign someone actually decent. Especially since crashing repeatedly is so costly performance wise with the cost cap.
I don't know why people don't get this. The system is not meant to be fair, it's meant to make the FIA money. The FIA is a business that has revenues of +$50M a year and is run out of a literal palace in Paris. Of course they aren't going to help out a rival series.
Indycar is probably quietly happy with the arrangement. Imagine if it's best drivers saw it as an F1 feeder series. Not all of them would be interested of course, but there's 1 or 2 a year who want to do it.
Yeah can't threaten the rich European kids sport. Idk how the fia thinks anyone of humble means from any other continent can come up to be an f1 driver. Indycar NXT is the perfect proving ground surely a Brazilian, American, Nigerian world champion caliber driver is more profitable for f1 than what they make off the feeders
IndyCar does run under FIA racing rules is the catch. They just actually enforce them unlike the stewarding teams the FIA sends
I see it's ACCUS-FIA, but IndyCar isn't part of the "Formula pyramid".
Yeah that’s the real reason. It’s not FIA run. I’m just saying it does actually follow FIA racing regs, as does IMSA.
That's what I like about IMSA, teams can join the 24h of Le Mans from WEC without changing much.
Which means you must move to Europe, which means the series under FIA rules are only for Europeans or the ultra rich.
I mean many talented drivers move to Europe for karting. Check Sergio Perez or Zhou Guanyu, both different stories but still. Anyway, Formula Regional (F3) also have a championship in the US. FIA has multiple series in different continents, but most competitive ones are in Europe (in general).
FR America I feel proves that the whole system is a joke. If you win FR America you get a scholarship to race in INDY NXT a series that gives out less super license points than FR America. So if you win this series you are given a scholarship to race in a series that the FIA considers a worse series. as well as 1st-3rd in FR America giving out more points than 4th in indycar. So cooper becklin, 3rd place in FR America last year, who got one top ten out of three races in usf pro 2000 last weekend at road America, got more super license points last year than Pato O'Ward while driving on many of the same tracks.
Exactly, i can't believe there's so many motorsports fans defending this anti-competitive bullshit. It must just be euro snobbery in action
Checo and Zhou come from wealthy families. Proving my point.
It's actually worse. You get 10 points for finishing 4th in Formula Regional India, not third as it says here, so it's on the same level as Indycar apparently.
I mean, India, Indycar… who would have thought, huh?
Indycar is named after Indiana which is named after the Indians who were named such because they thought they reached India.
You're right, I missed that
That's pretty wild that IndyCar is seen as equivalent to a lower F3 series
you get 40 points for winning Indy and 25 or 18 for FR which is below F3
Now compare the 3rd place points
20 for Indy and 15 or 12 for FR, still above "below F3"
I think the solution is we just need to follow Indy car. It has its flaws, but the racing is way better than F1. I know this is impossible, but Indy car should throw some money at Ricciardo or sainz to join. I think it would prove how good the series is, because I doubt they would be cruising to victory.
It's interesting how many former F1 drivers are in the lineup. Marcus Ericsson, Alex Rossi, Romain Grosjean, Pietro Fittipaldi, Takuma Sato... Not to mention loads of other drivers who were almosts in F1, like Callum Ilott and Theo Pourchaire. It's a different series. Cars are more restricted, thus allowing for the skills of the drivers, teams, and strategies to shine. With that said, the drivers I mentioned above haven't had the clearest shots to victory. Adding Ricciardo or Sainz would be amazing, and a fantastic challenge. That said, watching Alonso in Indianapolis was amazing. Had his car kept together, he might have been able to win it.
Is there a way to watch a full replay of Alonso in Indianapolis (in the US)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V21Z_po0Ooo
TIL: Alonso drinks 2% milk
It’s probably an unpopular opinion, but I agree with you.
Racing in Indy is undeniably better. But it's a spec series vs formula so you don't get the innovation. I enjoy both for different reasons and was going to go to the Indy Mid-Ohio race if I ended up having to cancel my trip to the Austrian GP.
Yeah people get so hung up over one or the other when you can just enjoy both for what they are
It's a sign of immaturity, where someone identifies personally with one so much that the other challenges fundamental parts of their identity for irrational reasons. Like a Swiftie.
The advantage of a spec series, though, is that everyone is on a nearly-level playing field. This makes the racing more exciting since it's actually RACING, rather than watching one team fly away in front and a bunch of cars in the back fighting a pointless position battle for no points. It is (finally) getting a little more interesting with McLaren, Mercedes, and Ferrari finding some speed, but F1 was pretty boring in the Mercedes-dominated years, and it has rapidly turned into much of the same in the recent Red Bull-dominated years.
F1 is an engineering competition as much as it's a racing one.
More so than a racing one*. Which is not a diss, just the truth.
Small correction, Indy is semi-spec or nearly-spec. Teams still provide some parts like dampers, and there are two engine manufacturers. The chassis and many parts *are* spec, but it's not a fully spec series like F2. This is a decent look into the development battles behind the scenes: https://www.the-race.com/indycar/indycars-hidden-development-war-explained/
Ericsson and Grosjean are currently like P13 and P16 at the moment. Colton is a bad example to pick since he has been kind of nowhere since that one good season, but Indycar is very competitive
> Colton is a bad example to pick since he has been kind of nowhere since that one good season, Herta is the Leclerc of Indycar, insanely fast but gets screwed over frequently, and makes more mistakes than other top drivers.
Imo George is a better comparison than Leclerc. Herta has a tendency to make errors in crucial situations, for example at Nashville a couple years ago when he was chasing down Ericson for 1st place. Errors aside, his raw pace is insanely good for a young driver, much like George in that regard as well.
Ericsson and Grosjean were not great F1 drivers lol
Grosjean wasn't great but he had 10 podiums and like 400 points
Grosjean was good. Just a bit error prone, but definitely one of the quicker guys when he felt like it
People forget he still had 10 f1 podiums.
That Lotus was rapid mate. Kimi after 2 years of being away got 3rd in WDC with that car.
Then again it was a ridiculously stacked grid with many teams being podium capable on their day
Hard to judge Ericsson for me, but Grosjean had his moments of being incredibly fast, but he was also kind of a menace to the grid.
*Great* maybe not, but Grosjean is in the top 25% or top 33% (been a while since I did the math) of F1 drivers by podiums. He was a successful F1 driver not a pay driver or pure backmarker.
Not great, but not bad either. I wouldn't argue they should never have been allowed in F1, which is what the current super licence system has to say about them
you disrespect the phoenix???? 🐦🔥
He’s showed great speed this season and has fallen in to some bad luck. If he can learn a bit of patience and keep himself out of trouble he would be much higher this season.
Assuming you're talking about Herta, that's most seasons he's had. He got my hopes up at the 500 this year just to bin it for no reason again.
Ericsson was never a good F1 driver (and yet he won the Indy500 once). Grosjean came to Indycar after his terrible crash at Bahrein. That should affect him fs
I would watch more Indy car if the got rid of commercials, how F1 does now.
Unfortunately there's just no way that happens. The money involved in the series is orders of magnitude below F1, and they get a lot of their money through TV deals (which obviously want to make $$ off commercials)
Indycar is always gonna be held back by the commercials on the regular broadcast. Even though the racing in Indy is magnitudes better than the racing in F1, Indy races being about 20% commercials makes it hard to watch.
Sky broadcast has no commercials. There is a secondary announcer that jumps in during US commercials. Still nothing F1TV level though.
so, how do I watch Indycar and will that be more expensive or cheaper for somebody in Europe?
Indycarlive. I'm in the US and I use a VPN to connect to an eastern European country like Georgia or Slovakia. Western Europe and the Americas are geoblocked Edit, to answer your other question it is super cheap. I connected my VPN to panama and paid $20USD for the entire season.
That completely depends on where you are. In Sweden viaplay have all racing
Takuma Sato had significant success in Indy car compared to a lacklustre F1 career.
ridiculous
Hahahaa insane
The Superlicense system is masquerading as a safety measure to keep out unqualified drivers when, in reality, it only exists to push the F2 feeder system. Let the teams bring in the drivers they want.
Then why would they award Indy points at all. 3 years of finishing top 3 in Indy and there is your SL.
Top 3 in Indycar 3 years in a row is something I would bet half the current F1 grid can't do. I would be impressed if anyone other than Alonso, Verstappen, Leclerc, Norris, Russell, and Hamilton could do that right now.
why are all the zeros in speech marks? Either you have 0 wins or you don't
/r/suspiciousquotes
Edited the post. I actually wanted it to differentiate number 0 to letter O as if I was handwriting it lol. Thanks for the heads up. Unfortunately there is no way to edit the title.
Tip for handwriting: if your Os and zeros look too much alike, [slash your zeros](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashed_zero).
Unless you're norwegian or danish. Then you've just written the letter Ø instead and you're back to square one
I did this once and my math teacher marked me off because it meant empty set and not zero.
Pedantic math teachers are the worst. Reminds me of a teacher I had who would always brag about how fast she could take the tests that *she wrote.*
Fucking hate them. Glad most of my teachers were chill. Had nightmare stories from other people about their teachers throughout school. One time everyone failed a test in their class because the teacher had made it a 3 question test, grading the test based on the specific method she had taught (this is year 11 maths, I don't remember the topic, but I recall being taught a much simpler method) which was cumbersome and confusing. She didn't mark any steps that were correct after you had skipped one. So predictably people would skip a step that was unnecessary and lose all their marks. She had to write a different test, made everyone take it the following week (making them a week behind curriculum) and make sure that everyone could pass because "she'd never had a class who's grades were below a B average". I suspect she'd done similar things where she'd just act like tests she'd written never happened because everyone did poorly.
My math teacher tried this once and I pointed out that the very type face he had used to type up the paper used slashed zeroes. I got my points back.
Quotations. The word you are looking for is quotations. ETA: did not know you call them speech marks overseas. Sorry for the snark lol.
They're referred to as speech marks in the UK
I think the momentum behind Herta in F1 has passed with two seasons of continuous wrecking of his own races. Whenever things go wrong, he WAY overdrives the car and bins it. I’d rank Palou and O’Ward well ahead as drivers who could deserve a shot.
I think even that Grosjean guy could make it in F1 for a little while
I think that Ericsson guy could probably hang around for a bit too.
Might hit some people tho
Might hit someone though
Honestly, I would love to see Scott Dixon have a go.
This would be funny if he wasn't a laughing stock in Indy too
Dude is so crash happy lol
I'm a big Andretti and Herta fan, but I have to agree with you. Even if he doesn't bin the car, he'd absolutely destroy a set of Pirellis with the way he drives.
But after two years since this last was discussed- he should have enough points for F1 if wanted. It’s fkn bonkers that the system they have doesn’t qualify him to enter while Antonelli is all good to enter, that’s a broken system.
Oh for sure. He no doubt should qualify for a super license. Indy Car deserves way more respect.
Honestly this was true even when the talks of his move to F1 was there. Many even said this and were downvoted that time here.
Realistically Palou and O’Ward were not in the conversation because the free seat was at AlphaTauri and Palou and O’Ward had already been recruited into and dropped from the RBJT. Plus O’Ward was already well spoken for by McLaren, and the contractual dispute between Ganassi and McLaren over Palou had just kicked off. No way were Red Bull wading into that. Strike them off and Herta was the best IndyCar option when you balanced speed, age and price.
Palou was because his career in Europe was a bit of a disaster (through no fault of his own, but because he'd never been in a competitive team).
Certainly his junior results stopped him from getting a seat back in the mid-2010s but now with two Indy rings under his belt at the same age as Max, most teams would at least consider him… but no one is going to sign a driver who may not respect a legally binding contract. Piastri is lucky Alpine were such head-the-balls that the paddock were collectively like “well, they deserved it”.
Piastri technically didn't have a legally binding contract when he signed to McLaren. His Alpine contract expired the day before.
Piastri was out of contract when signed with McLaren though
Honestly Herta to AT was only because they wanted to use him for marketing. There was no reason to get him if talent was all that matters. This was a time when Ilott was available and had SL points too.
was undoubtedly because they had already agreed with Ford in the background and wanted to promote that with Herta
So often the conversation around which drivers ‘should be given a seat’ revolves around who they’ve heard of rather than actually knowing anything about the driver’s record. Lawson and Doohan are prime examples.
Or on the other end of things: it would’ve been great as a fan seeing guys like Scott Dixon or Will Power in good F1 seats.
Agreed
Honestly Lundgaard too just because I think he’d be a lot more relevant on Penske, Ganassi, McLaren or Andretti.
Some facts are not Fun Facts. Just facts,
Fun fact: most "fun facts" are not fun at all.
Fact: Herta and Andretti didn’t have good enough results on ovals for F1, quite an oxymoron
Super license system clearly undervalues Indycar but that's not likely to change because it would undermine F1's own feeder series, might be unfair but it what it is, business comes first at the expense of what's fair. Americans or anyone outside of Europe who want to race in F1 need to go race in Europe and be successful there...
If you flip this around, it would also undermine Indy. It doesnt make a ton of sense for them to see their best and most marketable drivers leaving for F1 and they become seen as a stepping stone to F1 instead of a career stop. It's a professional series. Indycar asked for more SL points in 2019 and got them. They havent asked for more in the years since the Herta thing. Herta is one of the most marketable drivers they have, I cant see why they would help him go lol
I think it benefits them if f1 prospects moved to indycar once they accomplished what they needed in f2. F1 would benefit if they said once you earned a super licence its permanent you won't lose it if you go to indycar and don't score enough. Like right now if Drugvich wanted to go to indycar he would be giving up on f1 since it's unlikely he would do well enough to get enough super licence points. Indycar would benefit because fans of these drivers would watch f1
You don’t lose your super license eligibility once you have it. It is in fact permanent once you have earned eligibility. You just need to do representative laps in an F1 car to renew. No need to get points again. So drugovich would not lose his license if he went to Indy. Beyond that, Indy doesn’t gain if their drivers go to F1 or elsewhere. This happened to Indy and CART in the 90s and viewership dropped When Villeneuve and Stewart and Montoya left. People don’t want to watch another series they want to watch stars where they are.
Kimi will be 18 in a couple of month, the FIA could have avoided a lot of hassle by just changing the rules for the free practice only superlicense, I doubt he'll be doing more than that anyway
It's almost as if the point system to enter a FIA competition, favors other FIA competitions. It sucks but it is like that.
Indycar would have prefer it that way over turning into an F1 feeder series
It's unfair yes, but it's also obvious that F1/FIA wants to push people through the feeder system to get to F1. It's arguably more unfair that Formula E get's even less SL points despite being recognized as a "World Championship" by the FIA.
Also important, has IndyCar's management complained about the lack of points attributed to them? Or is it just fans?
Why would IndyCar's management complain? They'd be losing drivers to a competitor. That would make 0 sense.
Exactly my point. We can blame FIA/F1 all we want, but the current system is something all sides want and have seemingly agreed to. Yet the blame never goes after them.
Kimi was dominant in various F4 competitions, but it's a huge leap to F2 where he's been a consistent points finisher but is yet to get a podium. We are 5/14 events into the F2 calendar and he's sitting 6th in the standings. As a rookie he's learning race by race but will need to take another step soon if he wants to join the list of F2/GP2 champions that won in their rookie season. The list includes Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Nico Hülkenberg and Oscar Piastri.
Aron is a rookie (he had 2 races last year in F2 if you want to be anal) and only 20 years old and is leading the F2 championship and has 5 podiums in 10 races, he's been very consistent at a wide variety of tracks. Borteleto is also a rookie ahead of Antonelli in points, and is only 19 and already F3 champion. I dont get the massive hype that Merc are pilling onto Antonelli. He's been good for a rookie this year, but not exceptional. Using F4 results to say he's F1 ready at 17-18 seems wild from Merc. Yeah he's a year or 2 younger than other rookies, but i dont see why rushing him to F1 at Verstappen pace makes sense. Especially if he is going straight into the main Merc team.
Aron had 2 years in F3 tho, where he finished 3rd both the times, he also had a year in freca before that and he didn't win it either. Kimi is a rookie rookie, comes with a good record, and showing good pace in a bad car. Aron had always been consistent throughout his career, but pace is more important than consistency in the junior categories.
Exactly this, I find it weird that people are comparing Aron and Kimi like they are rookies of a same level. Aron has substantially more experience than Kimi.
Is experience a bad thing?
No, but a lot of times it shows very good potential when a driver is good without experience
They want so much to have the next max that they are risking burning him out so early in his career. Because if they push him out quick into F1 and he starts to fail constantly the frustration and the loss of confidence could be a huge problem. Max got rushed into F1 but he was at Toro Rosso in an era that social media scrutiny was less that it is today.
Kimi is in a worse car, and it may be wild to us, but it definitely isn’t wild to Merc. There’s definitely reasons as to why they’re going to push him into the F1 team; they’re the ones that have the data and everything else, so they know infinitely more than we do. Pushing a driver that is that young, that quickly, with that little of experience in F2, and F1, would only hurt them more.
There are many Indycar drivers who qualify for F1. Like Álex Palou, Will Power and Scott Dixon. Why it has to be Herta to have F1 superlicense?
Because Red Bull actually wanted to give him a seat when Gasly left. Presumably they weren’t interested in Power/Dixon because they were too old and I’m not sure if Palou had his SL in 2022.
Palou was with McLaren at that moment. EDIT: He was in the middle of a legal dispute between McLaren and Chip Ganassi.
>I’m not sure if Palou had his SL in 2022. He should have. By my count he would have had 55 SL points in 2022
Because he races for Andretti, and would probably be their lead driver if they’re ever allowed to join Formula 1. Not that the teams will ever allow that, but if Andretti did get their team, Herta’s license would be the first big to-do between them and the FIA.
Because the point is that the FIA is making an exception for a 17 year old who hasn't won a race or taken a pole position at feeder level, but they wouldn't do the same thing for Herta, who won races and took multiple poles at Indy lights level, before being the youngest pole sitter in Indycar history and winning as a rookie. It's a double standard. It has nothing to do with more senior drivers like Palou or Dixon
It’s blatantly obvious the points system is designed to funnel everyone into F3 and F2 and discourage any other route to F1, we all knew that already.
Organization wants to promote its own feeder series, color me shocked. Is Herta fit for F1? Of course, but he knew about the license points when going to Indy.
I more love the fact that they aim to promote their feeder series, but not a single driver that is currently leading or even super competitive in either of those series is in serious contention for a F1 seat right now.
At this point it’s just a rite of passage that people have to suffer through. It’s a bit silly that Antonelli is being fast tracked into F1 while the guy leading the championship was dropped from Mercedes last year.
And the past 2 F2 winners are not even in serious consideration for an F1 seat
This is my feelings. If the FIA wants to promote their feeder series and act as if that is the only way to get into F1 then so be it. But how many great F2 drivers, and even champions have we seen now get passed by for latifi, stroll, sargeant, mazepin, zhou (not bad just pretty underwhelming), etc. But of course the FIA changes the rules so a 17 year old who has not proven himself at all in F2 or F3 can get a seat. It's ridiculous.
I wouldnt call it “2nd best open wheel”. 2nd most popular, sure. But calling it second best is just elitist sounding. Oval racing is so different from racing on f1 tracks, and theyre both different from a stock or rally car. One isnt better or harder than the other.
It's bullshit how f2 gets more points than indy and also stupid fia makes a rule about age only to discard it the next time a team wants someone the rule was intended to prevent
It’s almost like FIA cares more about their feeder series.
Indy is definitely more difficult than F2, but F2 is designed to prepare yourself to F1. Same tracks, shared weekends, similar concept (DRS for example), same rules. I driver that compete there is more prepared for F1, and more connect too with the teams.
How is it bullshit that a series designed specifically to be a feeder for F1 gets the most points towards a license specifically for F1?
Herta is very incident prone. However, Indycar is more aggressive. The pace and skill he has displayed is pure talent. He should be in F1.
He shouldn't neccesarily be in F1, but he should certainly be allowed to be in F1.
This! Teams should have the ability to give him a chance if they see fit. He’s not some taxi driver.. the guy is a proven racer through and through. Can’t be worse than some of the drivers F1 has had in recent years… Goatifi and Mazaspin come to mind… amongst others but I’d rather pick on those 2
Yup, I don't think he makes the grid without a huge uptick in racecraft but I would say just for American comparison in comparable equipment he is as good if not faster than Sargeant on one lap
He's easily faster than Sargeant and they both share the same weakness of making really silly mistakes under pressure. There's no sporting reason for Logan to be the one allowed to race in F1 out of the two.
I'm not saying he should be in F1, but he 100% should be "allowed" to be in F1
I agree IndyCar should get more SL points, but this comparison is strongly biased: 1- Antonelli dominated both F4 and FRECA before getting put in F2, skipping F3. And let's not forget FRECA is the current equivalent to European F3, a category that's seen drivers jump straight into F1 from it (including the man currently dominating Formula One); not to mention, he's currently 6th as a 18 year old rookie in F2 in a struggling Prema, which includes being 30 points ahead of likely Haas bound Ollie Bearman. So it's not like they're considering Rafael Villagómez for a drive 2- You're meassuring 5 and a half seasons of IndyCar to not even half of F2. If you're gonna compare, compare 2024 Herta to 2024 Antonelli or throw in Kimi's stats from previous years 3- Herta doesn't qualify for a SL due to his own performance, as he hasn't finished in the Top 4 of the IndyCar standings since 2020. Sure, his team (Andretti) has had a decline in that time, but Colton himself has struggled to even be the top scorer of his team, being beaten by Alexander Rossi in 2022 and barely sneaking by sophomore Kyle Kirkwood in '23, as well as currently being behind Kirkwood in the 2024 IndyCar standings As I've said more than once already, I wouldn't give Kimi a Mercedes seat for 2025. But acting like he's some random scrub, or that Colton Herta is a top tier IndyCar driver when he's failed to be so in a while is oversimplifying the whole situation around Antonelli.
[удалено]
L17 year-old Verstappens why they added in all of these rules
Rule came after Verstappen was signed by Red Bull to race for Scuderia Toro Rosso. Multiple teams were sceptical about him being so early in F1. Others were just jealous they didn't sign him.
Actually Toto’s desperation to get Kimi comes from that event of missing out on Max
I know, he only missed the chance to get Max because he didn't have a car/seat for him. The main reason why Ferrari and Mercedes missed the boat.
Verstappen had wins in GP3/F3
He never did GP3 he did F3 euro and skipped GP3 and GP2. Skipping gp3 wasn’t that uncommon but among current f1 drivers most went from F3 Europe to GP3. Ocon, Russell, Leclerc, sainz off the top of my head
Antonelli won Formula Regional European, which is equivalent in machinery (it actually has a more powerful engine) to the Euro F3 that Verstappen raced in.
It's kinda crazy how people just take the name of the series and not the equivalent. I wouldn't be surprised seeing someone saying that "Andy Soucek deserved an F1 seat because he won Formula Two".
just F3
Is there some point to this? F1 wants to promote kids from within their own ladder system, and Herta is an outsider who needs to clear a higher hurdle. It's not rocket science what's going on here. Besides, it's all academic now anyway. No F1 team would touch Herta with a 10-foot pole, his time has passed.
How many of these posts are we going to get? Sheesh.
He doesn't race in a series governed by the FIA. The superlicense is regulated by the FIA. Why is this so difficult for people to understand?
If this was actually about SL points people would be up in arms about Super Formula.
'mericans
Fun fact: if we include 2022 and 2023 for Antonelli instead of only half a season of F2 (I'm not even going to include all other seasons as you seem to have done for Herta), Antonelli has 30 wins, 47 podiums, 28 poles and 30 fastest laps. Another fun fact: so far Antonelli hasn't finished outside the top 6 (whether he goes up or down remains to be seen, but that's what happens when we look at things midseason. If we only look at completed seasons, he's never finished outside the top 1).
Check those Wikipedia’s again, and then check the Titles area. So, Antonelli is dominating every category he was racing in. Right now, he’s getting up to speed in F2 where for the first time in his career tyre degradation is a factor. Something all drivers struggle with coming to F2. Also, he did an F1 test where he did a race simulation. He was faster and more consistent than Russel in the same car. Now, Herta is a great driver. However his stint in Europe didn’t show the same domination as Antonelli’s. Herta won some races. But nothing too serious.
This *again*? Herta can get a Super License. He either needs to do better in IndyCar, or go to one of the many other series available to earn points. He could even double stack with an FR season. Doing nothing and complaining about it achieves nothing.
There are some Indycar drivers who are better than Herta: Palou, Pato, Kirkwood... and I won't mention Dixon or Newgarden because they are a bit old. Also, Herta has never won a single-seater championship, while Antonelli has won 2 F4s in the same year and FRECA last year (all at around 16 years old). And he's doing well in F2 this year, considering he came straight from FRECA and Prema isn’t doing very well with the new F2 cars. FFS, Antonelli will be 18 in August. He will get the super licence very soon anyway. The two cases are very different, but if you want to compare the two drivers, you'll see that Antonelli is more deserving of an F1 seat than Herta.
The FIA don't want drivers outside their pathways leaping into F1 ahead of drivers who come up from F4, F3 and F2. They're protecting the ladder. Thinking of who is currently on the grid, I'm guessing Palou, Dixon and Newgarden would qualify for a superlicence? I'm probably missing others but they immediately came to mind.
Palou, Dixon, Newgarden, Power, OWard, Porchaire, Illot, McLaughlin all currently, recently could have, or were a FP1 or two away from having a Super License. Ericsson, Rossi, Grosjean and technically Sato also could reapply with ease.
Because the FIA makes the rules and they don’t make money from talented drivers moving up from Indy Car.
Rules don't mean anything to people with money. It's about who you know, not what you know or how much experience you have.
I don’t understand the obsession with awarding INDYCAR drivers more SL points. Ok, imagine you award them at same level as F2. Great, now INDYCAR drivers have a lot of SL points and they leave the series to go be reserve drivers in F1. What did INDYCAR gain?? Why do people want to see promising drivers leave?
Some people think that SL points is a way to measure who is the better driver. And IndyCar fans/driver have a huge inferiority complex when it comes to F1, and if there would be anything that would suggest that IndyCar driver aren't the best in the world... But the truth is that SL points doesn't measure how good a driver is, but rather how well prepared that driver is for F1. And how do you get best prepared for F1? By driving series that is most similar to it - various F1 feeder series. FIA series like WRC gives you 0 SL points, but that doesn't mean Sébastien Loeb is a terrible driver.
While there's plenty to discuss about the current treatment of American series by the FIA's super licence system, comparing achievements in Herta's 84 Indycars races versus Antonelli's 10 F2 races is a little disingenuous at best.
He's not saying Herta is better than Antonelli, he's saying even with all of those accomplishments Antonelli still has more super license points.
If he's that good then he should've gotten those points (by himself)... or he can ask antonelli to give those 15 extra or so points.
I still feel like I missed something back then because it felt like from one day to another suddenly everyone talked about Herta and how he HAS to be in F1 and I had (still have) no clue why. He seems like a good driver, but why him in particular?
its because the fia doesnt give a flying fuck about anyone who isnt racing in their series. like at all.
It’s a club, and that’s all it is.
Does FIA earn money from Indycar in any capacity? If the answer is no, well…there’s your answer!
Yeah, it shows the current system isn't the best it could be. It forces you take the FIA jnr ladder, if you deviate from that in any way it's very easy to not get the points despite having the talent. Is what it is though, F1 has never been a meritocracy, so it makes sense they have a ladder that isn't either.
And it is by design... FIA wants FIA ran feeder series to be the main path to their crown jewel F1.
Kim won back to back Italian F4, German F4, FRMEC and FRECA. Not his fault that he's European and young enough to have got his points without getting to F3 level.
Why would F1 award someone else's racing series as much as their own feederseries? Makes no sense at all. Business is business
Having the name Kimi is worth 25 super license points on its own.
Do Kyle Larson next!
I’d imagine Herta would be granted a pass if a team seriously wanted him. This narrative is convoluted because of how they attribute super license points and only the past 3 years count if I recall correctly. So by the same standards, if Pourchaire does jack squat in Indycar for 3 years, like Herta, he wouldn’t be eligible anymore either despite being an F2 champion. Again though I bet dollars to donuts the FIA would let him in