Number of tasks to racing
What a few people may have missed in the euphoria of New Zealand getting our first Formula One driver since 1984, is that it’s not as easy getting the bloke into a modern F1 car as it used to be.
There’s getting a custom seat made, paperwork, helmets, licences, race suits among other things.
“People go ‘ Oh so you’re changing’ and think it’s pretty simple,” said Toro Ross manager Graham Watson. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more that goes on. The Brendon thing came around very quickly.
“I was sitting in the Dubai airport lounge at 4am on the way back from Japan when Franz [ Tost] asked me what I thought about Brendon Hartley driving.
“I thought he was joking for a moment and I said ‘ I suppose so if that is what you want’. Franz said there were two or three in the mix but Brendon was coming out on top.
“By the time I got back [ team base] it had been confirmed and it just went mental from there. There are so many regulations that stipulate certain time frames that you have to lodge paperwork and other stuff.
“We contravened most of them and were so far outside the window of the amount of time it’s supposed to take. We had to get a superlicence, which Brendon obviously got without any problem, then there was the contract recognition board where you have to lodge his contract which involves lawyers and then you have to let the FIA know.
“On top of that Brendon wanted car No 28 [ the number he has had since his days in karts] but we didn’t have enough time to get FIA approval so went with 39 [ although 28 has now been approved]. You can’t just drop someone in the car.
Hartley has raced in No 28 from an early age. It was his father’s racing number and Hartley says it’s just a coincidence his initials are the second and eighth letters of the alphabet.
“We had to get branded overalls made, which normally take 20 days, but we needed them in less than a week,” Watson added. “I then asked if Brendon had an F1 helmet; he didn’t, just a sportscar one.
“We had to then contact Bell in New Zealand to get them to deliver a new one to Brendon’s painter in Auckland, get it painted and then delivered to Austin. It arrived on Thursday before the race.”