Hartley chases an F1 point

Brendon Hartley will be chasing a point at the Mexican Grand Prix after his team confirmed he has a seat for the rest of the Formula One season.

The Kiwi will look to build on his F1 debut performance last weekend for Toro Rosso at the US Grand Prix, where he finished 13th.

‘‘Winning the race is optimistic, a realistic goal or target would be to score a point. That would be huge. If I could score a point in Mexico, that would call for a big celebration. That has to be the goal. A difficult goal, believe me,’’ Hartley told Radio Sport.

Hartley has been given the green light to stay with the team for the last three F1 races of the year.

‘‘Yes, I can confirm it is 100 per cent Brendon will remain in the car for the rest of the season. He also has to finish his Porsche commitments, so he will be a busy boy,’’ Toro Rosso Team manager Graham Watson told Newshub.

The move sets Hartley up for a whirlwind world tour of races and series, with five more races in as many weeks. His F1 callup has i thrown a curveball to the World Endurance Championship season as well.

Hartley will race in F1 three times in the next month, while also fitting in two WEC drives as he clocks up plenty of air miles. He will now get to race the final three events of the F1 year starting on Monday (NZ time) in Mexico, followed by Brazil and Abu Dhabi stages, with WEC races in China and Bahrain sandwiched between F1 events.