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New Zealand driver Brendon Hartley’s Formula One career could rest on the power of his engine.
OPINION: Delve into the life of former world champion Jenson Button and you get an idea what Brendon Hartley has to cope with in Formula 1 motor racing.
Button’s life story is just out in hardback, even with the trite title of Life to the Limit, which could apply to any racing driver, especially one with a playboy disposition.
Button had the advantage of living in England, whereas Palmerston North’s finest, Hartley, had to emerge from the end of the earth, a feat in itself.
Both trod similar paths, through karting, Formula Ford and Formula 3, but Button as a European champ in front of TV cameras had it easier because Europe is where it’s at in motorsport. Where they differ, so far anyway, is Button went on to be the 2009 world champion and has had 15 wins in Formula 1. His last drive was a cameo in Monaco earlier this year.
Hartley has arrived at F1 via an unusual circuitous route and would have been happy getting a test driver or simulator role. Instead, he was thrown straight into the US Grand Prix without so much as a blat around the block.
As Button says, luck is important in getting a first win.
To do that a driver needs a fast car and obviously Hartley didn’t have one in his four starts for Toro Rosso this year, not with that dog of an unreliable Renault engine.
Button got his big break when he signed again for Honda for 2009, only for the Japanese company to quit Formula 1 and take their engine with them back home.
When Ross Brawn bought out the team, he had no engine so got the nod through McLaren to use a Mercedes unit. Suddenly, he had the fastest car on the grid and McLaren instantly regretted it because Button win six of his first seven races.
Ironically, Hartley will have a Honda engine next year – the one vacated by McLaren, the engines the most unreliable in Formula 1 – and will be hoping it does a Brawn. Curiously, the current Honda race team boss was previously chief engineer to Button.
Having an exclusive engine partnership might allow Toro Rosso to be a full-blooded team rather than a B team for Red Bull. It was rare for a team to change both drivers in one season, but Toro Rosso pulled it off when Carlos Sainz went to Renault and Daniil Kvyat, too aggressive with his starts, was shown the garage door and replaced by Hartley.
As Button said: “If you have a good car, everything’s so much easier. You can make mistakes. If you have a middle-of-the-pack car, you can’t make a single error.”
Button said he could have signed for Toro Rosso when Honda pulled out, because the team had great spirit and attitude – “still does”. “But I knew I’d never get close to a podium in their car.”
Except Sebastian Vettel did, when he won with Toro Rosso for their only race win.
“He’s probably the hardest-working driver on the grid in terms of his time with the team,” Button wrote.
Button though went through tough times with Benetton, Renault and BAR until he hit the jackpot with Brawn and later McLaren.
Who knows, there are hints Porsche might slip back into Formula 1 as an engine supplier sometime and Hartley is one of theirs from their endurance racing. He is staying under contract with them as a works driver while at Toro Rosso.
At least next year Hartley won’t have this year’s crazy schedule when he must have developed vertigo with eight weekends of pressure racing on the trot, criss-crossing the world.
Mostly because of that infernal engine, he copped four grid penalties in his four F1 races, which prevented him starting when he had qualified. That, and mechanical problems in Mexico and Brazil, cost he and his team-mate Pierre Gasly points and the team US$7 million in losing their sixth placing.
By the way, Button stresses that your biggest rival is your team-mate in Formula 1. The other is learning to cope with the cars’ downforce and losing grip when close behind another car.
Like Button, Hartley is doing it hard living in Monaco, where there is no income tax or capital gains tax if you live there for six months and a day. But it does have the world’s most expensive real estate, a good investment no doubt. Button parked his yacht there.
Having visited the principality for all of four hours, I consider myself an authority on the place.
Nice airport is just 15 minutes away over the rock on the French Riviera and in Monaco there is zero tolerance to paparazzi.
Other F1 drivers there include Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, David Coulthard, Niko Hulkenberg, Giancarlo Fisichella, Felipe Massa, Valtteri Bottas, Esteban Gutierrez, Daniel Ricciardo, Max Verstappen, Kvyat and Sergio Perez. That is almost the full Monte, as in Carlo.
Source :Stuff.co.nz
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