Hartley takes swipe at Gasly’s memory lapse

Brendon Hartley has taken a sarcastic pot shot at his Toro Rosso team-mate’s short memory.

Hartley and Pierre Gasly were involved in a controversial radio exchange during the Brazil Grand Prix earlier this month when Gasly ignored multiple team orders to let Hartley pass him.

The Kiwi F1 driver was being significantly held up by Gasly and was under pressure from Carlos Sainz who was closing from behind when the Toro Rosso team told the Frenchman to let Hartley by.

Speaking before this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the final F1 race of the year, Hartley sarcastically described Gasly’s take on the incident as a ‘‘nice speech’’.

‘‘It was a nice speech Pierre did about team orders to the media,’’ Hartley told Autosport. ‘‘But he didn’t give the same one when I let him past many times, also for position, or sometimes compromised my race to help him or the team secure points,’’ he said.

Hartley, yet to learn his fate for 2019, is racing for his F1 career but Gasly has already been confirmed for an internal promotion to Red Bull’s senior team to replace Australian star Daniel Ricciardo who is heading to Renault.

Gasly’s refusal to follow team orders in Brazil led to Hartley unleashing an expletive-laden rant over the team radio in frustration.

‘‘At the end I’m a racing driver, I’m here to race, that’s what I want and that’s what I like. That’s my perception of motorsport and how it should be. That’s how I am. I’m here to race, I’m not here to let the guy past, especially in this kind of situation,’’ Gasly said.

But Hartley is obviously unimpressed by Gasly’s short memory.

Hartley has been forced to tweak his strategy or sacrifice track position to assist Gasly many times on team orders during the season, and it’s those double standards that have hit a nerve with the Kiwi driver.

During the race, Gasly said Hartley should pass him if he was fast enough to do so. But Hartley has debunked that theory, telling Autosport the team had told him not to race Gasly as they were light on

‘‘If I’m told that the race isn’t on, then I’m not going to go against the team orders and risk damaging a car.’’

Brendon Hartley, left, hits out at Toro Ross team-mate Pierre Gasly, right

spare parts so they didn’t want to risk damage by the pair racing each other.

Hartley was told Gasly would let him by to avoid a repeat of the Chinese Grand Prix when Gasly ran up the back of him.

‘‘In the end I was told – a long way before I caught him – he’d let me through when I got there. And I was told each lap he was going to let me by in turn four.

‘‘I did a better job managing tyres, fuel, and had better race pace than him in the race, so the team saw that I had the best chance to score points if somebody had an issue ahead, which didn’t happen,’’ Hartley told Autosport.

‘‘If the team tells us that we’re racing, that’s what I’ll do, but from the team’s point of view, when we don’t have spare parts for the new aerokit, it didn’t really make sense for us to be fighting.

‘‘I’m all for racing, but if I’m told that the race isn’t on, then I’m not going to go against the team orders and risk damaging a car that we don’t have a lot of spares for.

‘‘I mean, the team’s position was pretty clear in the meeting so there wasn’t really much more to discuss,’’ Hartley said.

‘‘We have very clear team order guidelines, after he went into the back of me in China earlier this season and we had the clash.’’