Hartley hopeful of more Honda F1 engine upgrades
New Zealand’s Formula 1 star Brendon Hartley is welcoming any push from Red Bull to hurry development upgrades to his Toro Rosso team’s Honda engine.
With Red Bull switching to Honda power in 2019, there are concerns Toro Rosso will be guinea pigs, helping speed the development of Honda’s power unit before the big team begins using it.
But Hartley, who has already used his three allocated power units and will incur a grid penalty whenever new updates are introduced, is welcoming any boost in power.
“There were always updates planned, one of which has already come, but I know there’s other stuff in the pipeline but at least from what I’ve seen, I haven’t seen any added pressure,” Hartley said. “Of course we will welcome all the performance gains we can. The way the team is working together and systematically going through it collectively — Toro Rosso and Honda together — it’s all going in the right direction.”
Many think Hartley is instrumental in providing feedback to the team and Honda about his car and engine, and that his previous experience working with the factory Porsche outfit in the World Endurance Championship is suited to this situation.
Hartley enjoyed some time out, mountain biking in the United Kingdom after the last race at Silverstone a fortnight ago.
He suffered a massive crash in qualifying at the British Grand Prix when his car’s suspension collapsed and sent him into a scary high-speed collision with a wall. But he feels no lingering effect from the incident.
“Waking up on the Sunday, I was ready to go,” he said. “There were almost no knock-on effects, which was a surprise after watching a replay and seeing how spectacular it looked.
“The impact was smaller than I had at Canada and Barcelona — I’ve probably taken the top three crashes of the season by myself. Hopefully that doesn’t happen again.”
Hartley is looking forward to this weekend’s German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring.
“It is a proper track; it has got history — obviously not the same one that was raced many years ago through the forest.
“I am remaining surprisingly optimistic after the last few results I’ve had. I feel most of the bad results over the last two months have been out of my control. I still feel strong and in good spirits and ready to take on this weekend.
“As we have all seen from P7 — after the top three teams — to the very back, it’s a very tight battle.
“If we’re able to eke out two more tenths [of a second] from the car from any area of development, that could mean securing quite a few points or not scoring.”