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Cadillac has announced that Colton Herta will drive Valtteri Bottas’s car in FP1 at this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
Herta, a nine-time race winner in the US-based IndyCar Series, joined Cadillac as a development driver ahead of the F1 2026 season as he targets a future F1 seat.
Colton Herta to deputise for Valtteri Bottas in Hungarian GP FP1
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The California-born driver is combining his Cadillac duties with his debut season in Formula 2, F1’s official feeder category, in 2026.
Herta has achieved five points finishes so far this season, recording a best finish of fifth in Barcelona last month.
That weekend saw Herta make his first-ever Formula 1 practice appearance as he deputised for Sergio Perez.
Herta was slowest of all in FP1 at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, lapping almost two seconds slower than Bottas.
Valtteri Bottas vs Sergio Perez: Cadillac head-to-head stats for F1 2026 season
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F1 2026: Head-to-head race statistics between teammates
Ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, Cadillac has confirmed that Herta will return to the cockpit of the MAC-26 car in Budapest, deputising for Bottas.
In a statement issued to PlanetF1.com, Herta said: “It’s very exciting to get another chance in FP1.
“It’s a good opportunity for my personal experience, but the ultimate goal is, of course, to help the team with its development.
“It’s been six weeks since I was last in the car and there’s been a lot of evolution in that time.
“My job is to help the race drivers have the best possible Hungarian Grand Prix – but also provide the feedback that will aid the team in its long-term development aims and give me a better baseline in future sessions.”
Under F1’s rules, teams are required to field a rookie driver – defined as a driver who has made no more than two grand prix starts – in four FP1 sessions, two in each car, over the course of each season.
Herta’s latest appearance in Hungary will mean that Bottas and Perez have missed one each so far in F1 2026, with both required to miss another FP1 session in the second half of the season.
Cadillac, the first brand-new team to arrive on the grid since fellow US outfit Haas in 2016, remains without a point at the halfway stage of the season.
Despite struggling to match the pace of Perez, Bottas recorded the team’s best result of the season with 13th place in China.
Perez thought he had scored Cadillac’s first-ever F1 point in Monaco last month before a post-race penalty demoted him from 10th to 15th in the final classification.
Bottas narrowly missed out on outqualifying the Haas of Esteban Ocon in Belgium last weekend, falling just 0.022 seconds short of the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix winner.
Bottas said ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend: “It was good to do a full race distance last weekend and it seemed like we were a little closer to the midfield.
“The Hungaroring should be better suited to our car and we’re keen to go into the break with momentum.
“A lot of Finns come to Hungary for this grand prix and that’s always a huge positive for me. I’ll certainly be looking for the flags in the grandstands.”
Graeme Lowdon, the Cadillac team principal, added: “Hungary is likely to be another hot weekend – but at a circuit that will perhaps suit the characteristics of our car a little better than last week.
“I’m pleased with the progress that we have made across the opening half of our first F1 season, but we still have work to do to achieve the reliability that we want.
“The more mileage we accrue, the better positioned we will be to understand our package and develop the car.
“In particular, we will be looking to put mileage on the new brake drums introduced to ease the issue we had in Austria.
“We will be stress-testing the MAC-26 with a series of race simulations so both drivers can extract the maximum performance from the car.
“There are no shortcuts in designing certain parts of the car and every operating scenario is completely new for us but we are constantly learning and improving as a team.”
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