Colton Herta wins in AsiaCup Series debut

Fourteen-year old Colton Herta had his first two races in the AsiaCup Series races at Sepang, Malaysia, Saturday, collecting first- and second-place finishes. The championship, for Formula BMW cars, is run by Peter Thompson's Meritus.GP organization. This weekend's event is rounds 5-8 of the 12-round series, there are two more races on Sunday. Here is his diary of the day, as told to Andy Hallbery:

I woke up this morning, and it was raining. I love the rain, so that was a plus for me. I think I'm pretty good in those conditions, and it really suited me and helped me to get the victory in the first race of the day.

I thought there was going to be a five-minute board on the grid for my first standing start and the mechanics were going to come out and stuff. But it was a five-second board! So I wasn't fully ready, and I don't think I got that good of a start. I was good at modulating the throttle and not getting a lot of wheelspin, so I recovered from a bad start and was in the lead by Turn One.

It was slippery, but it's tough because the braking here is so weird. You can run a slick line, you can run a rain line, and in the conditions we had you could run both, and they would be fast. I think I chose the right line, which was the more traditional dry line, and it worked. I wasn't really able to charge the entry to the corners, but I could get out strong, and that really helped me to keep Jake (Parsons) behind me on the straightaway.

He kept close to me, and was catching in the first half of the race. He got alongside me at one point under braking into Turn One. I had to keep a really tight line, because he was going to try to cut back under me, and that worked. Then he made a little mistake and that meant I was able to gap myself, and to keep it. At the end of the race, I went a second faster than him for two laps, and that gave me the pole position for the second race.

After the finish we came in and parked under the F1 podium – that was nice. And then we went straight up on there to get the trophies. Being up there was awesome. I felt like a Formula 1 driver! We'd parked where they park, and went up the same steps as the F1 guys do. They even played the "champagne" theme music from F1, although there wasn't any alcohol up there!

On the podium there was also a nice surprise, as Peter Thompson, who runs the AsiaCup Series invited my Dad up to present the trophies. Dad was honored to award me the first place trophy. He looked me in the eyes and said: "Really good drive," and that meant a lot to me.

Race 2

I felt a lot of pressure going in this morning, a bit shaky. But having that win off my back, and knowing I had speed is a big relief.

I got a good start, and really good opening lap, I was up on Jake by a second and a half at the end of it. Then he caught me a little bit, then I pulled away again, and it was like that for the first half of the race. He began to close, and he caught me on the last lap and was able to get by. He got the win, and I was second, but it was really close. Just a couple of tenths at the flag.

I really enjoyed the racing with Jake today, and both races were good. We've been very evenly matched from qualifying, race one and race two, and we are really close in lap times. I think we'll stay close for the rest of the weekend.

I like to drive in the wet more, and I'm hoping it rains tomorrow, and we can get another couple of good results. But right now it's time to take the trophies back to the hotel after what has been a great day. My first ever FIA international race win. It feels good...

-Colton