AUSTIN, Texas – Colton Herta’s first career victory in the NTT IndyCar Series provided Honda Performance Development (HPD) President Art St. Cyr with a win in his final race.

After seven years as HPD President, St. Cyr leaves his post on April 1 to become a vice president and business unit head of auto operations for American Honda, responsible for product planning, public relations and logistics.

St. Cyr played a key role in helping Harding Steinbrenner get to the top step of the podium at Circuit of The Americas (COTA).

When the former Harding Racing team was increasing its involvement in the NTT IndyCar Series by bringing Herta in as a rookie driver and George Michael Steinbrenner IV to the team as a co-owner last year, the key to the deal was its involvement with Andretti Autosport.

Team owner Michael Andretti was helping his friend, Indianapolis paving company owner Mike Harding, expand his operation. Harding was a Chevrolet team and Andretti was a Honda operation. There was no way Andretti would be allowed to work for Honda and be involved with a rival engine manufacturer.

Honda was already at its limit in terms of engine leases to teams in the series. In order to make room for Harding Steinbrenner Racing, St. Cyr would have to get approval from Honda to expand the engine facility in Santa Clarita, California and go over the team limit that had been imposed.

St. Cyr was successful; more production space was added on to the HPD facility and Harding Steinbrenner Racing became a Honda team. It could then work with Andretti Technologies to supply technical expertise to the team and its 18-year-old driver.

Sunday at COTA, Honda’s newest team gave St. Cyr his final victory as HPD President.

“It’s a heck of a way to end it,” St. Cyr told NTT INDYCAR Mobile. “It’s pretty fantastic. Colton sure showed he is fast beyond his years. He is younger than my sons.

“Man, he drove a heck of a race.”

St. Cyr’s faith and confidence paid off with Herta’s big win.

“It wasn’t easy, but we look at the future of our sport and who is going to be the next generation of racers who are IndyCar stars,” St. Cyr said. “With the way things went, we thought it was a good choice and a good decision to add Colton Herta and we tried to add Patricio O’Ward, too.

“It’s great that it provided fruit so early.”

When the green flag restarted the race with eight laps to go, Herta’s Honda was in the lead, but 2017 NTT IndyCar Series champion Josef Newgarden was on his tail. Newgarden is great at restarts, but on this day, no driver had a better restart than Herta.

“Josef is fast; he’s a former champion,” St. Cyr said. “Colton is fast, too. He was fast here for the preseason test and fast in practice. As long as he could nail the restart, we knew he could stay in front. He beat some pretty big names, too.”

Herta was able to build a gap over Newgarden’s Chevrolet and score his first career win by 2.7128-seconds over the Team Penske driver. Andretti Autosport driver Ryan Hunter-Reay was third and Graham Rahal was fourth as drivers from the United States swept the top four positions.

At 22, Steinbrenner is the youngest team owner in the series. He spoke about how important St. Cyr’s efforts at HPD were to the success of the team.

“It's really special,” Steinbrenner told NTT INDYCAR Mobile. “We had a tough engine manufacturer’s decision to make over the off-season. When we were at the end of the line, we chose Honda for a couple of different factors.

“I had a history with Honda, being involved with Andretti, being involved with Bryan Herta before. I knew some of the folks at the administration over at Honda, HPD. It was sort of a comfort level for me to be able to call Honda home.

“To do it in Art's last race, for us to be able to bring him a win, when he and the rest of HPD had so much confidence in us, it was really special.”

Herta’s career is just beginning. St. Cyr’s career is moving in a new direction.

“It’s definitely bittersweet,” St. Cyr admitted. “The new job is a bigger job with more responsibility, but once you get racing in your blood, it’s hard to get out of it.

“I will enjoy watching the NTT IndyCar Series as a fan and you will still see me around.

“I want to see more days like this.”