IndyCar: Herta, Hawksworth keen to continue in 2015

Bryan Herta Autosport owners Bryan Herta and Steve Newey have been delighted with the pace and potential shown by 23-year-old rookie Jack Hawksworth, and according to the team's namesake, continuing with "Union Jack" in the No. 98 Honda is BHA's priority for 2015.

"He's done a tremendous job at many places this year and has had the traditional rookie ups and downs, but we've also had the familiar one-car team situation for a rookie to learn on his own – we've seen it with [Josef] Newgarden – and Jack's done an incredibly good job with that," Herta told RACER. "We're happy with Jack, we have to put our program together for next year and I can't see any reason why Jack wouldn't be a part of that."

The young Englishman has been a rocket on most road and street courses this year. Qualifying inside the Firestone Fast 6 on three occasions, Hawksworth led 31 laps at the Grand Prix of Indy, earned his first podium at Houston Race 2, and has a pair of sixth-place finishes to his credit, including one at the most recent round in Toronto. With an option on his services in hand, Herta is focused on completing the sponsorship base needed to ensure Hawksworth stays in the fold.

"We'd like to keep him; that's what we're working towards; we aren't in a position to sign him yet, but there's a mutual interest in continuing together," he added.

Hawksworth agrees with Herta.

"We've had some good moments and some frustrating ones, but I get along really well with the team and it's something I'd like to continue with," said the 2012 Pro Mazda champion. "We've got some of the best personnel in IndyCar, full stop, and if we want to be more consistent across the board, we need a little bit more money to do more testing, more R&D, and we all know we can show more with more resources."

Coming off a debut win at the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship's Brickyard Grand Prix in a Prototype Challenge car, Hawksworth has a busy month ahead with the final four IndyCar races of 2014 spread across a five weekends. The one free weekend he has between open-wheel obligations will be filled with sports car duty, making for a particularly busy month of August.

"I'm head down for the last four IndyCar races and have another sports car drive at Road America with RSR, so things are going really good for me right now," he added. "I didn't know what to expect in the PC car, but it was a lot of fun. Strategy was the key thing to learn, and having Bruno [Junqueira] to learn from was excellent.

"I'm really liking the sports car racing; you learn pretty quickly that patience is important with so many cars going different speeds around you. I hope I can continue doing more [sports car races] and I think it will help in my open-wheel racing, too." ​