Bryan Herta

Bryan Herta
Bryan Herta at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2004.
Nationality	American
Born	(1970-05-23) May 23, 1970 Warren, Michigan
Indy Racing League IndyCar Series
Years active	2003-2006
Teams	Andretti Green Racing
Starts	58
Wins	2
Poles	3
Best finish	8th in 2005

Bryan John Herta (born May 23, 1970 in Warren, Michigan) is an American race car driver. He currently runs his own team, Bryan Herta Autosport in the Firestone Indy Lights Series. His team won the 2011 Indianapolis 500 with driver Dan Wheldon.

Racing career

CART/Champ Cars/IndyCars

Herta enjoyed considerable success in the lower formulae, winning the Barber Formula Ford and Barber Saab series championships, and dominating the 1993 Indy Lights championship with Tasman Motorsports.

He graduated to IndyCar racing in 1994 with team owner A. J. Foyt, where he had several promising races before suffering a season-ending injury at Toronto.

In 1995, Herta was hired to drive for Chip Ganassi Racing. Despite a pole at Phoenix, the association was unsuccessful, with Herta managing only a 20th place in the series standings while his teammate Jimmy Vasser finished 8th. Even so, Herta landed a top ride with Team Rahal for the 1996 season.

During the next few years, Herta developed a reputation for his prowess on road courses, especially at Laguna Seca Raceway. In 1996, he was the leader until the last lap, when Alex Zanardi made the spectacular pass through the "Corkscrew" chicane and took the victory. Herta, who rarely qualified below the first row at Laguna Seca, finally won two events on the twisty road course in 1998 and 1999. At the height of Herta's career, fan interest in the Shell-sponsored driver was dubbed by team owner David Letterman as "Hertamania."

Bryan Herta's #77 Forsythe Championship Racing car in 2001

In the opening laps of the 1998 event at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin's Road America circuit, Herta was involved in one of the scariest incidents in the history of North American motor racing. In the 4-mile (6.4 km) road course's fifth turn, Herta got too close to the back of the car of co-owner Rahal, and spun out into a paved runoff area, facing oncoming traffic. A few seconds later, an ESPN camera that had zoomed in on Herta's head pulled back when Herta clenched his fists and put them against the sides of his head. As course workers scattered, Alex Barron slid into the front of Herta's car and rode up on top of it. Both drivers were okay. Herta reported that Barron's car had actually hit his hands, only inches from his face.

From 2000 to 2003, Herta drove for a variety of Champ Car teams including Forsythe Championship Racing, Mo Nunn Racing, and PK Racing, but never quite regained his form from the late 1990s. In 2002 Herta drove an F1 car for the first time, piloting a Minardi at the "Thunder in the Park" event held at Donington Park. This led to speculation that he would test and even race for Minardi in F1, however this never happened.

IRL IndyCar Series

After dabbling in sports cars, he revitalized his open-wheel racing career by substituting for an injured Dario Franchitti halfway through the 2003 IRL season.

In just his third IRL start, Herta picked up his first IndyCar Series win at Kansas Speedway for Andretti Green Racing. He was retained in an expanded four-car squad in 2004, usually running development engines. On July 31, 2005, Herta took his second IndyCar Series win, defeating AGR teammate Dan Wheldon in a close finish in the Firestone Indy 400 at the Michigan International Speedway.

In early 2006, he drove at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and Fundidora Park for A1 Team USA in the A1 Grand Prix series before returning to Andretti Green for the IRL season.

As of 2006, Herta has started in the Indianapolis 500 five times (1994–1995, 2004–2006) with three top ten finishes, including a best of 3rd in 2005. Bryan has his helmets painted by AliveDesignCo.com

Sports cars

On October 31, 2006, Herta was confirmed as a driver for Andretti Green Racing's new Acura Le Mans prototype program for the 2007 American Le Mans Series season. He shared the car with Marino Franchitti, brother of his former teammate Dario Franchitti. On January 3, 2007, it was announced that Dario would also drive a limited ALMS programme with both Marino and Herta. Herta finished the season 7th in driver points with 1 class win. He also drove for A1 Team USA. At the event in Australia, Herta scored a 10th-place finish.

After racing

Since retiring from racing, Herta served as a driver coach for Vision Racing and founded a Firestone Indy Lights Series team named Bryan Herta Autosport, which has a technical alliance with Vision Racing's Indy Lights team. In 2009, the team fielded a full-time entry for Daniel Herrington. The team campaigned Sebastian Saavedra for eleven races of the 2010 Firestone Indy Lights season and the Indianapolis 500. In 2011 the team fielded a car for Dan Wheldon in the 2011 Indianapolis 500 which resulted in a stunning victory, and a full-time entry in Indy Lights for Duarte Ferreira.

For the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series season, Alex Tagliani will defend the team's Indianapolis 500 championship. The team switched to a Honda powered DW12 in May 2012 for the remainder of the season.

Career racing results

American Open Wheel

(key)

CART results

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	Rank	Points
1994	Foyt	SRF	PHX	LBH	INDY 9	MIL 10	DET 9	POR Ret	CLE 13	TOR DNS	MIS	MDO	NHM	VAN	ROA	NZR	LS						23rd	11
1995	Ganassi	MIA 10	SRF Ret	PHX Ret	LBH Ret	NZR Ret	INDY 13	MIL Ret	DET Ret	POR Ret	ROA 14	TOR Ret	CLE 2	MIS Ret	MDO 5	NHM 19	VAN 16	LS Ret					20th	30
1996	Rahal	MIA 10	RIO 13	SRF Ret	LBH 12	NZR 11	500 Ret	MIL 14	DET 13	POR Ret	CLE 5	TOR 6	MIS 2	MDO 4	ROA 5	VAN 6	LS 2						8th	86
1997	Rahal	MIA 10	SRF Ret	LBH 6	NZR 7	RIO 6	STL Ret	MIL 15	DET 7	POR 21	CLE 3	TOR 17	MIS 5	MDO Ret	ROA Ret	VAN 8	LS 6	FON Ret					11th	72
1998	Rahal	MIA 8	MOT Ret	LBH 3	NZR 8	RIO 4	STL Ret	MIL 11	DET Ret	POR 3	CLE Ret	TOR 5	MIS 10	MDO Ret	ROA Ret	VAN Ret	LS 1*	HOU 8	SRF 10	FON Ret			8th	97
1999	Rahal	MIA 10	MOT Ret	LBH 3	NZR Ret	RIO 13	STL Ret	MIL Ret	POR 6	CLE 6	ROA Ret	TOR 15	MIS Ret	DET 9	MDO Ret	CHI 8	VAN Ret	LS 1*	HOU 5	SRF 4	FON 14		12th	84
2000	Walker	MIA	LBH 5	RIO Ret	MOT	NZR	MIL	DET															18th	26
	Mo Nunn								POR 16	CLE 9	TOR Ret	MIS	CHI	MDO	ROA	VAN
	Forsythe																LS 4	STL	HOU	SRF	FON
2001	Forsythe	MTY 16	LBH 10	TXS NH	NZR Ret	MOT Ret	MIL Ret	DET Ret	POR 14	CLE 3	TOR Ret	MIS 5	CHI 21	MDO Ret	ROA Ret	VAN 17	LAU Ret	ROC 15	HOU 13	LS 12	SRF 18	FON Ret	22nd	28
2003	PK Racing	STP	MTY	LBH	BRH	LAU	MIL	LS 11	POR	CLE	TOR	VAN	ROA	MDO	MTL	DEN	MIA	MXC	SRF	FON NH			25th	2

CART career summary

2 wins, Best championship result: 8th

IndyCar results

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Rank	Points
2003	Andretti Green	HMS	PHX	MOT	INDY Inj	TXS 5	PPIR	RIR 14	KAN 1	NSH 12	MIS 19	STL 21	KTY 3	NZR 3	CHI 3	FON 22	TX2 5		13th	227
2004	Andretti Green	HMS 13	PHX 7	MOT 14	INDY 4	TXS 19	RIR 4	KAN 5	NSH 18	MIL 9	MIS 6	KTY 9	PPIR 9	NZR 8	CHI 2	FON 17	TX2 16		9th	362
2005	Andretti Green	HMS 14	PHX 7	STP 4	MOT 5	INDY 3	TXS 10	RIR 8	KAN 15	NSH 22	MIL 6	MIS 1	KTY 19	PPIR 12	SNM 13	CHI 14	WGL 8	FON 11	8th	397
2006	Andretti Green	HMS 13	STP 4	MOT 6	INDY 20	WGL 13	TXS 11	RIR 6	KAN 13	NSH 11	MIL 7	MIS 11	KTY 10	SNM 10	CHI 15				11th	289

IndyCar career summary

2 wins, best championship result: 8th

Indy 500 results

Complete American Le Mans Series results

Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Class	No	Tyres	Car	Team	Co-Drivers	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2002	LMP900	11	M	Panoz LMP01 Evo Élan 6L8 6.0L V8	Panoz Motor Sports	David Brabham Jan Magnussen	90	DNF	DNF

Complete A1 Grand Prix results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

External links

• Herta's official site
• Herta's profile from IndyCar.com
• Bryan Herta Autosport's official site
• Bryan Herta on A1 TEAM USA Official Site
• Bryan Herta's helmet painter