Herta leads impressive list of young Indy car race winners

By INDYCAR | Published: Oct 29, 2019

Colton Herta winning at COTA

In March, Colton Herta became the youngest winner of an Indy car race, breaking a Graham Rahal record which had stood for nearly 11 years.

The category has been inching younger in recent years. In 2006, Marco Andretti broke Jimmy Davies’ mark set in 1949. Rahal broke Andretti’s record.

Other current NTT IndyCar Series drivers are on the list of the youngest winners in the sport’s history. Scott Dixon ranks sixth, Ryan Hunter-Reay 12th.

Of those in the youngest top 10, only Troy Ruttman (1952) scored his first win in the Indianapolis 500.

The rankings are as follows:

  1. Colton Herta was 18 years, 11 months, 25 days when he won the INDYCAR-sanctioned race at Circuit of The Americas on March 24, 2019. Herta's second win, which came Sept. 22 at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, would rank fourth on this list.

  2. Graham Rahal was 19 years, three months, two days when he won the INDYCAR race at St. Petersburg on April 6, 2008. That was Rahal's first race in the combined IndyCar Series. His career stands at six wins.

  3. Marco Andretti was 19 years, five months and 14 days old when he won the IRL race at Infineon Raceway (Sonoma) on Aug. 27, 2006. The third-generation driver nearly won his first race three months earlier as Sam Hornish Jr. beat him to the finish line of the Indianapolis 500 by 0.0635 seconds. His other race win came in 2011 at Iowa.

  4. Jimmy Davies was 20 years, two months and 29 days when he won the AAA race at the Del Mar (Calif.) Fairgrounds dirt track on Nov. 6, 1949. Davies led all 100 laps, something he did in two of his three career wins.

  5. Nelson Philippe was 20 years, two months and 29 days when he won the Champ Car race at Surfers Paradise, Australia, on Nov. 22, 2006. The Frenchman ran 40 races from 2004 through 2007, winning the one race and scoring a pair of third-place finishes, including one on the Milwaukee oval.

  6. Scott Dixon was 20 years, nine months and 14 days when he won the CART race at Nazareth (Pa.) Speedway on May 6, 2001. The first of his 46 career wins came in his first oval race.

  7. Sam Hornish Jr. was 21 years, eight months and 16 days when he won the IRL race at Phoenix Raceway on March 18, 2001. That win was his first with Panther Racing, and it came in the season opener. He won the second race, too (at Homestead). Hornish won 19 races and three championships in his IndyCar career.

  8. Tomas Scheckter was 21 years, 10 months and seven days when he won the IRL race at Michigan Speedway on July 28, 2002. The South African had been knocking on victory's door, starting on the pole three times in that rookie season. It also was his next to last with Cheever Racing. Scheckter won only one other race (Texas 2005).

  9. Greg Moore was 22 years, one month and 10 days when he won the CART race at the Milwaukee Mile on June 1, 1997. It took the Canadian 23 races to reach victory lane, but the second win came a week later at Detroit. He won five races in his career.

  10. Al Unser Jr. was 22 years, one month and 29 days when he won the CART race at Portland International Raceway on June 17, 1984. His 34 career ranks ninth on the all-time list.

  • As it’s not in the top 10, Hunter-Reay was 22 years, 10 months and nine days when he won the CART race at Surfers Paradise on Oct. 26, 2003.