Hartley thrilled by life in the fast lane

New Zealand motorsport star Brendon Hartley has likened a Formula One car to driving ‘‘in fast-forward’’ and described them as ‘‘mind-blowingly fast’’.

Life in lockdown with the motorsport world restricted to simulated races has given Hartley plenty of time to reflect.

The 30-year-old is mixing Formula E with endurance racing these days but still has the fondest of memories for his season and a half in Formula One with Torro Rossa in 2017-18.

When dailysportscar.com asked the two-time world endurance champion and former Le Mans winner his dream car, Hartley didn’t hesitate to nominate the Toro Rosso STR13.

‘‘It’s the car I dreamed about when I was a little kid.

‘‘I went around as a six-year-old telling everyone I was going to be a Formula One driver which was a completely ridiculous thing to think was ever going to happen but it did,’’ Hartley, one of the few Kiwis to make the top grade, said.

He then gave a real feel of what it’s like to be behind the wheel in motorsport’s glamour class.

‘‘If I just think about a qualifying lap, in a Formula One car in one of the quickest years in Formula One history, that was unreal . . . just mindblowingly fast,’’ he told dailsportscar. com.

‘‘Sometimes even watching back the onboard videos after the session you’d have a moment thinking – was I really doing that?

‘‘It looks like it’s in fast forward but when you’re plugged in and you’ve got the adrenaline running through your veins you’re totally immersed and it all feels natural and almost normal.

‘‘But even to this day when I watch it back it looks incredible and it feels unbelievable to be driving those cars at that speed around the world.

‘‘Particularly in qualifying when you have low fuel, new tyres, that’s when that car just feels unreal.

‘‘Sometimes in the races proper, with tyres that degraded so quickly, there were frustrations. But if I just single out a qualifying lap of every weekend, yeah, that that was pretty hard to match.’’

‘‘It feels unbelievable to be driving those cars at that speed.’’

GETTY IMAGES Kiwi driver Brendon Hartley describes his brief career in Formula One as ‘‘unreal’’ even if it did have its difficult moments, such as this crash in practice for the 2018 Spanish Grand Prix, right.