Hartleys celebrate as their boy Brendon hits the big time
It’s fair to say more talking and less work was on the agenda at Hartley Engines and Motorsport in Palmerston North yesterday.
The garage which has built engines for many a top driver around the world, is now the heaving family hub of New Zealand’s newest motorsport star, with Brendon Hartley confirmed to make his Formula One debut at next week’s US Grand Prix.
Confirmation came early yesterday morning that the 27-year-old would drive for the Red Bull-owned Toro Rosso team at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) track in Austin, replacing French rookie Pierre Gasly, who has clashing commitments in Japan, where he’s trying to win the Championship.
Brendon’s father Bryan – himself a former notable racer in Formula Atlantic, Formula Holden and several other single-seater classes – said the business he has owned for 20-plus years had already had a steady stream of well-wishers in the few hours after the news broke.
Then, come the big day on Monday week, many of those from the local motorsport community will meet at the usual gathering spot of the Rose and Crown Olde English Pub to watch Hartley on the big screen, with the 8am start nicely coinciding with champagne breakfast.
With the call-up happening so quickly, Bryan said dropping tools at work and heading to the States Super Formula would let others down, but that he, wife Lynda and the eldest of their two children, Nelson (31), would take it in from the atmosphere of the pub, with the Labour Day timing fitting, so the garage – where all three of the Hartleys work, with two other employees – can remain closed for the day.
When contacted by Stuff yesterday morning, Bryan was still to speak to Brendon, because he’s in Japan, but was looking forward to making an ‘‘emotional’’ congratulatory phone call.
He had known a call-up for him was in the pipeline, but the news was still thrilling, with Hartley to become just New Zealand’s ninth F1 driver, and first since Mike Thackwell in 1984.
‘‘We’re very excited about it, it’s been a big dream of ours for something like that to happen, and for one of my boys to do it, I’m a very proud person,’’ Bryan said.
Hartley’s first taste of F1 came all the way back in 2008 with a test drive, then had been made a reserve in subsequent years, but 2017 will go down as the real highlight, with him winning the famous 24-hour Le Mans race for Porsche in June, currently leading the FIA World Endurance Championship he won in 2015, and now the ultimate call-up.
Bryan said racing was inevitably going to be in the blood of his boys – Nelson still competes in sprint cars and Lynda has also done some – after being ‘‘carted around motor racing tracks all round New Zealand’’.
He had been reminiscing all morning about those younger years, with both boys introduced to karting at the age of six, before Brendon was all of a sudden off to Europe at 15.
An extraordinary amount of time and money has been poured in, but Bryan said it had been a pleasure rather than any burden, and the F1 chance was the ‘‘reward’’.
‘‘The money was not what it was about, it was about doing what we love,’’ he said. ’’It’s been a fantastic journey along the way to make it happen.’’
Bryan said while the best piece of advice he had probably offered Brendon was just to ‘‘use your head’’, he credited his son’s steely willpower for his latest achievement, and recalls one moment in particular where he saw his boy had the desire to go to the top.
‘‘When he was collecting a trophy one day at a karting ceremony, I’d given him a Jean Alesi [former French F1 driver] t-shirt, and he stood up on the stage and pulled it out and told everyone he was going to be like Jean Alesi one day. And he’s done it.’’