After the New Zealanders debut season in Formula One, in which he had an unlucky season filled with retirements, crashes and a pretty powerless Toro Rosso, Brendon Hartley was shown the door. The 29 year old scored a mere 4 points over the entire season and finishing second to last in the drivers standings. Whilst his teammate, Pierre Gasly, finished four places ahead of him in 15th place. However, Hartley did experience two more DNFs than Gasly on tracks where the car was more powerful such as Monaco, where Gasly managed to secure a crucial 7 points for the Italian team.
Toro Rosso was in dire straights at the end of the 2017 season, in which they had axed Daniil Kvyat and loaned Carlos Sainz to Renault as part of their engine divorce deal leaving them driverless for the rest of the season. As a resolution, they brought in Pierre Gasly for the Malaysian and Japanese GP but allowed Kvyat one last chance in the US Grand Prix. However after Austin, Gasly was signed to Toro Rosso for the last 3 races of 2017 and the full 2018 season. Brendon Hartley was also brought in to replace Carlos Sainz in the last 3 races of 2017 and the entirety of the 2018 season.
Many speculations were made as to who would replace Sainz in 2017 some of the names being: Nobuharu Matsushita (Honda Junior driver), Robert Kubica (Now Williams driver) and many other drivers from the Red Bull Junior Programme. But, not once did Brendon Hartley's name pop up!
Hartley wasn't on the media's radar for the Formula 1 seat, even though Brendon was part of the Red Bull junior programme from 2006-2010. Although, Hartley changed racing paths from karting to endurance racing, which lead him along with his teammates to win 24 hours of Le Mans in 2017 and became double World Endurance Champions in both 2015 and 2017 with Porsche. However, Brendon specialised in endurance racing not Formula 1... So it was unpredicted that the New Zealander would be signed for 2017 onwards.
However, after Brendon Hartley's debut season the Toro Rosso treatment strikes again, we won't be seeing the blonde driver on the grid for the 2019 season. In an interview last week Brendon hinted to there being more reason to his sacking than just on-track performance. "I would love to tell the story one day." He continued with, "The politics I don't enjoy. It took me some time to get used to the extra media attention. What I will say is Formula One is very complicated, there's a lot of money involved, politics and some of the reasons why drivers stay or leave isn't always in your control or of reasons for pure performance. In any case, I left the paddock with my head held high. I knew I'd given it my best shot this year. I knew that I'd stepped up to the plate when I needed to."
Hartley's future is yet to be confirmed but reports have already begun of Hartley moving to Porsche for a factory role for 2019. Other reports have leaked of Brendon racing in Formula E late next year.
But for now Brendon Hartley is out of Formula 1 and will be replaced by Alex Albon next season.
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