Brendon Hartley, Toro Rosso, Monaco, 2018

Hartley “feels a lot less pressure” at Toro Rosso now

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In the round-up: Brendon Hartley says he feels he is under less pressure following rumours earlier this year he could lose his seat to Lando Norris.

What they say

Speaking before Pierre Gasly’s move to Red Bull for 2019 was announced, Hartley described how he responded to the rumours about his future earlier in the year:

Since the start of the year I’ve definitely changed my approach. Around the time there was a lot of rumours, there was increased pressure put on me. I took a very different look at things and approached things differently especially mentally.

I feel really strong and very focused on myself and the things that are actually important. I feel a lot less pressure now than I did at the start of the year with the different approach.

I know from my entire career sometimes going through some tough times is what can make you stronger. A big part of being a sportsperson, or in any area of life, is learning from the tough times. that’s a big part of what I believe.

I feel like, yes, I’ve had some tough times but I feel stronger because of it. I feel I’m learning all the time, doing the best that I can with the team to get a result.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

What will happen to Force India if they can’t find a solution to take part in this weekend’s race?

With an asset sale, instead of a complete takeover as was reported earlier, I wonder they will race at all this year.

They will have to get a new entry and thus forfeit all prize money. Don’t know how long this will take.
@Silfen

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On this day in F1

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25 comments on “Hartley “feels a lot less pressure” at Toro Rosso now”

  1. Is it out of respect to Schumacher that Hollywood haven’t yet came up with a movie about a injured racing driver whose brain is converted into an algorithm to robo racing, in a Tron meets Days of thunder style?

    1. I think there is a movie already if i remember in the seventies some B or C movies.

    2. KITT
      as long as the obsolete racing drivers don’t start a singing career ;)

      1. @coldfly is it because KITT is black?

      2. we’re doomed, it already started! JV album!

  2. I wonder how Perez feels about the FI situation now, if they can’t race this weekend, or even the rest of the year, as COTD suggests.

    1. @phylyp If FIF1 gets to race in 2019, it’s still an improvement on the position it would have been in had Sergio not intervened.

    2. It would have led to this sooner or later anyways. Perez did not cause the financial problems at force india. This kind of stuff needs to be fixed. Going on and pretending all is right like vijay was trying to do won’t work. The sooner this happened the better. In a worse case this financial deficit would have gone on for another year possibly costing force india lots of their car designers, points and spot in the championship. It is far easier to sell a competitively healthy team with strong engineering team than a bankrupt backmarker where all the engineering skill has already left.

      Is this ugly? Of course it is. This kind of financial meltdown is never pretty. I can’t say what perez have caused. Only future can tell. But this could be far far worse. Like marussia/caterham worse.

  3. So with Lance maybe going to Force India. What does everyone think will happen to Ocon? Straight swap to Williams?

    1. If Lance goes to FI this season itself, then I’d definitely say yes, swap to Williams engineered by Mercedes to at least keep him racing, while Mercedes assesses how it can manage his future better for 2019 onwards. I don’t want to see F1 losing Ocon – his ascendancy over Perez has been impressive, and thus appears to be a future star.

    2. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
      23rd August 2018, 7:28

      I can see that happening. And I wouldn’t worry about it instantly being a bad move. Williams will feel like a great team to be in partly because of their history. Although their car isn’t good this year, the drivers are making it look worse. I get the feeling that Lowe will be already trying to improve the car for next year. At least he will have had much more time to prepare for the following season than he did for this. I am certain WIlliams will have an improvement next year that could well get them to be at least as good as Force India. And I think a driver like Ocon should be able to do well.

      1. @thegianthogweed ”the drivers are making it look worse.”
        – No, it’s actually the other way round.

        1. No. Stroll and sirotkin both suck. If williams had chosen driver skill instead of money you’d have massa in the car going about 0.8s per lap faster than stroll. That’s what the stroll’s deficit was to massa. Is the car bad? Sure. Are the drivers even worse? Absolutely 100% guaranteed.

          1. Without the 40 million or however much the drivers bring, how much slower do you think the car would have been?

          2. Richard, that is a fair question. Although how much of that 40 million goes to making the car better? Stroll has been doing lots of additional private testing with older williams cars. I can’t find good numbers for what a private test costs but it can’t be cheap to send the car, equipment and test team (test team personnel which you also need to pay), rent the track and pay for spares, tires and engines.

            Also because williams is selling their seat to stroll williams are probably making a profit. Using that money to pay debts. Looking at william’s development speed they are and have been the worst team for couple of years now. So even if all of that money went to making the car better it is without a doubt that massa would be bringing more lap time to the table compared to stroll and his millions. Massa was 0.6++ faster per lap and that is more what stroll’s million have achieved.
            https://www.racefans.net/2017/12/12/six-charts-which-reveal-the-best-and-worst-team-performances-of-2017/

  4. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
    23rd August 2018, 7:33

    Toro Rosso may have said they don’t want Kvyat back, but i see it as a sensible option for one of their drivers. They shouldn’t keep risking 2 new or almost new drivers. Kvyat may have gone downhill, but his first season looked decent and I’d certainly rate him in the top 10 for 2015. He can perform. I just blame Red Bull for the way they treated him. It was harsh. But yet he still managed to match Sainz in qualifying pretty much. And his last race in the USA actually looked good. With over a full season out of F1, I can see that he will have got over his struggles and his experience of about 3 and a half seasons would help the team a lot. Despite him not being anywhere near the best, I see him being better than the average rookie they would manage to get.

    1. Not sure why he choked 2 or 3 races in a row there besides knowing they wanted to boot him over Verstappen, but I agree that he is more seasoned and would be a better risk. Hulkenburg honestly said that he has just been lucky not to have been givin the boot over pay drivers. That was huge because he never would have said that at the start of his career cause it would have been dumb considering all still believed that F1 was a formula series of the extreme and that it paid handsomely. That is no more. It’s heading to electric. I think it sucks that FE will bar F1 from entering without concession. FE are aspiring to be F1 but F1 is not allowed? That’s like bootin the racer that helped you the most. You don’t boot people who want to race. We all love motorsports and that goes against getting any good races happening.

    2. I think toro rosso is the team that should always risk it with having young drivers. Kvyat has no future on f1. Toro rosso is all about future talent. It makes no sense to put kvyat into the toro rosso.

  5. Why a driver of Vergne’s ability is out of F1, while a plodder like Hartley remains is another in a long line of mysteries….

    1. I guess for the 4th seat they want a development driver that follows instructions.

    2. JEV said last week an F1 team was in contact with him. I thought it must have been Toro Rosso so maybe he will be back next year next to Hartley?

      1. @garns JEV is a FE world champion, going to Toro Rosso would be, in my opinion, a really bad move and step back.

        If anything RB should have been looking to put him in Ricciardos seat and let Gasly learn more.

  6. He’s under no pressure at all………………he knows he is out, not going to get a drive in another F1 team, and will get a drive in WEC or FE next year.

  7. That T1 crash still looks shocking nearly six years later.

  8. Thomas Bennett (@felipemassadobrasil)
    23rd August 2018, 12:22

    Hartley is permanently relaxed…

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