Start, Suzuka, 2018

Hartley says poor start ruined his race

2018 Japanese Grand Prix

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Brendon Hartley says a poor start wrecked his race after both Toro Rosso drivers failed to score in Japan.

“It was a disappointing day for everyone at Toro Rosso,” said Hartley. “We had two cars started sixth and seventh and we both finished outside of the points.”

A poor getaway spoiled Hartley’s race, he explained. “I had really poor traction off the line, huge wheelspin.”

“I lost a couple of places before turn two. It didn’t feel like my procedure was too bad on the start so I need to check on that one.”

Hartley fell from sixth to 10th at the start, then lost further places over the rest of his first stint. His poor start “massively overheated the tyres on the rear”, he said.

“They’re so sensitive that this really affected my entire first stint. I got them back into range and at the end of the stint the lap times started to be a bit more competitive and I could’ve stayed out a bit longer.

“But when we pitted I came out behind both Williamses. It took me quite a few laps to get past Lance Stroll, I did a good overtake on Sirotkin and then I was stuck behind Marcus Ericsson.”

Hartley’s traction problems recurred in his second stint, he said.

“I had a lot more pace but with the traction issues I had I couldn’t make the overtake and I started to suffer with blisters on the tyre at the end. I believe the other car had the same problem. I really suffered big time.

“We’ve been quite good on tyres all year and this race was quite the opposite. The rear axle on the first stint on my can and both cars had blistered in the second stint. So a bit of understanding to do, to understand exactly why that happened today.

“But we were clearly disappointed not to have any car in the points after such a promising qualifying yesterday.”

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11 comments on “Hartley says poor start ruined his race”

  1. He couldn’t even get past Ericsson at the end, which his teammate managed to do.

    1. They had different situations though. Gasly caught Ericsson basically right after Gasly’s stop on, where he had put on fresh soft tyres. 2 laps later he made it through. Hartly caught up to Ericsson 9 laps after his stop, and then the VSC happened. After that, the tyres seemed to totally go off, as evidenced by Gasly’s pace after the VSC.

      Hartley likely used up a fair bit of tyre life getting past Stroll and Sirotkin before getting to Ericsson. By then he likely didn’t have enough life in reserve to mount a proper challenge.

  2. I would love to say otherwise but your pace didn’t help either. Time to move on, Sorry mate

    1. Don’t lay the blame solely on Hartley. Honda evidently did improve as much as they claimed. Gasly couldn’t even get a top ten and was passed by a Renault.

      1. didn’t improve that is…

        1. I think a lot of the lacking pace is due to Toro Rosso being a sub par car. Their first stint was actually pretty good.

  3. How about that massive Honda engine improvement!!
    Yesterday Torro Rosso was chanting “We can fight” claiming they had surpassed Renault.
    Today Sainz easily passed Gasly and Alonso was virtually even with Hartley and in fact would have been ahead of him if not for his penalty.
    I think it would behoove Honda to tell Torro to hush from now onwards.

  4. Well, with soft tyres Gasly was quite fast and put some good overtakes. It is hard for me to say if it was because of the engine, or because the others were on medium tyres. Probably at the end his tyres just didn’t last, so it was not possible to keep the pace with Sainz.

  5. Obviously the qualifying places of both cars were the result of azar not of their good performance. The race has been a resounding failure for Toro Rosso. Guilty pilots or cars? Or both?

  6. It’s a new engine isn’t it? So perhaps it wasn’t at full power for the whole race to protect it. Or the driveablitly issues though were manageable in qualifying were perhaps to hard on the tyres in race trim.

  7. Looks like Honda spec 3 has the power but they have to work out the driveability, kills the tyres on traction (high temps and wheelspin suggest that). For a single lap works out, but for a whole race not yet.

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