Smart drive by Hartley gains historic point
AUCKLAND: Brendon Hartley secured his first championship point in yesterday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix but luck played a significant role.
The New Zealander drove a smart race, kept his nose clean as others got caught up in incidents and banked a valuable point at a venue where he really was not expecting to be contending in his Toro Rosso Honda.
Hartley becomes the first New Zealander to score a For mula One championship point since Chris
Amon in 1976.
The result is a huge boost for the
28yearold, who has made a couple of errors this season that have proven costly and robbed him of the chance of banking points. He also made a mistake in qualifying on Sunday that nearly resulted in a major incident and forced him to start near the back of the grid.
Hartley was relieved to avoid the crashes which took out several competitors.
‘‘There was a lot of drama around me, but I managed to keep my nose clean and take home my first world championship point in F1, which is great.
‘‘From my point of view, I kept it clean but we didn’t really have the pace today to challenge in the midfield. In the areas we needed to overtake we just couldn’t get close enough.
‘‘During the race the pace was OK, but on the Ultrasoft tyre at the end I didn’t feel like I could challenge the cars in front.
‘‘I would have loved to attack a bit more but let’s be happy with a point on the board . . . I’ll take this momentum into the next race.’’ — NZME/RNZ