Colton Thomas Herta (born March 30, 2000) is an American racing driver who competes in the NTT IndyCar Series for Andretti Global with Curb Agajanian.

[5] He started the year strong with a second-place finish in the first race at St. Petersburg street circuit and followed it up with a Sunday victory; Colton's first win in Indy Lights.

[12] After intense speculation that he would be making a move to Formula One, Andretti Autosport and Herta announced that he would be racing in IndyCar in 2022, partnering Alexander Rossi, Romain Grosjean, and Devlin DeFrancesco.

Road America proved to be the closest Herta would come to a win in 2023, dominating the race before dropping to 5th due to a poor strategy call forcing him to save fuel in order to reach the finish.

He struggled with bad luck and performance issues after the Indianapolis 500, though did manage to pick up another podium finish at Laguna Seca and his first pole position on an oval at Iowa.

At the final race of the season at the Nashville Superspeedway, Herta broke through and took his first win on an oval, securing second place to Alex Palou in the 2024 IndyCar Series championship standings, his highest points total yet.

Herta returned to Daytona participate in the 2022 edition, partnering fellow IndyCar drivers Pato O'Ward and Devlin DeFrancesco along with Eric Lux in an LMP2 entry for DragonSpeed.

[16] In late 2022 Herta was confirmed as one of the drivers for the new BMW M Hybrid V8 prototype to be fielded by Rahal Letterman Lannigan racing during the 2023 IMSA SportsCar Championship.

In the 2024 IMSA SportsCar Championship, Herta drove the #40 Acura for Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport and earned his first overall win in the series at the 12 Hours of Sebring.

With the attempted purchase of Sauber by Andretti Autosport, Herta was the favorite candidate to join Formula One with Alfa Romeo for the 2022 season partnering Valtteri Bottas.

He got to mold the seat and do a test with the simulator at the team's base in Hinwil, Switzerland, where according to multiple reports and Mario Andretti,[17] he set faster times than Kimi Räikkönen and Antonio Giovinazzi, then Alfa Romeo's lineup.

A preliminary agreement was reached with Ferrari to hold a 300 km test with a Formula One car so that Herta could participate in free practice in the United States, Mexico City and Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

However, those tests never happened and the negotiations between Andretti and Sauber broke down at the end of 2021, the purchase never took place and Alfa Romeo signed Zhou Guanyu for 2022.

[22] Red Bull reached an agreement with Alpine for Herta to be included in the tests with its Formula One cars in September in Hungary, which the French team was organizing to choose its driver in 2023.

[23][24] Alpine would accept, so that Herta could get some extra points in his super license and that the AlphaTauri driver, Pierre Gasly, was free to join the French team.

"[30] Herta plays the drums and is a member of indie punk rock band The Zibs, which he formed in 2018 with his high school friends Jon Graber and Chris Broadbent.