Colton Herta to miss Indy 500 after F2 calendar change

Colton Herta is set to miss participating in the 2026 Indy 500 after the FIA announced a calendar change to the Formula 2 season.

Owing to the ongoing Iran War, the F1 supporting F2 rounds in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia also cancelled at the same time as the grands prix, with the expectation that F2 would find replacement races with more spaces in the calendar to do so than F1.

F1's governing body has announced that F2 will now race on the undercard of the Miami and Canadian GPs in May - the latter of which is a clash with the Indy 500.

Herta, who has competed in the 500 seven times since his 2019 debut, was exploring a possibility of running with his former Andretti team, given F2 was not set to be in action until the Monaco GP on the first weekend in June.

However, the Hitech driver will now not be able to compete in both F2's Canadian round and the Indy 500. 

Owing to the clash between the 500 and the Canadian GP, the 500 has been moved forward slightly to a 10:00 ET start on Sunday, May 24th, with the race usually taking around three-and-a-half hours to complete. 

Given the logistics involved in Herta then moving from Indiana to Montreal and getting prepared for the F2 feature race on Sunday, it means he will not be competing in the 500.