Herta has qualified on pole for the most recent races at Road America and Mid-Ohio, but having slumped from first to fifth in the former after a strategy error, he was the architect of his own downfall on Sunday when he was caught speeding in the pits.
Herta had already lost the lead to series dominator Alex Palou in the first round of pitstops and was battling to stay ahead of Scott Dixon in the final pit cycle when he slid sideways entering pitlane and didn’t get his limiter control button to trigger properly.
The resultant drive-through penalty dropped him back to 11th.
“Disappointing day,” he admitted afterwards. “[We] just seemed to move backwards during the race and unfortunately we had a pit lane incident.
“I didn’t quite get the pit lane speed limit which gave us a drive-through penalty that threw us back.
“It is difficult to process the results of this race after starting P1. Hopefully, we can turn it around in Toronto.”
After starting the season with his father Bryan calling his strategy, Andretti Autosport replaced him with Scott Harner – switching Herta Sr. to team-mate Kyle Kirkwood, who promptly then won at Long Beach.
Harner was moved to Devlin DeFrancesco’s car after the Road America mishap, where Herta had to save more fuel during the final stint after pitting earlier than rivals. Andretti’s chief operating officer Rob Edwards is now calling Herta’s strategy, having previously done so for Alexander Rossi prior to his defection to Arrow McLaren.
Source: Autosport