New Zealand’s Brendon Hartley was looking forward to a strong performance at the British Grand Prix this weekend at a circuit that has seen the Kiwi driver achieve significant success in the past.
 
During the weekend’s opening pair of practice sessions on Friday, Hartley was carrying out some extensive testing mileage for the Scuderia Toro Rosso team on a range of new parts and configurations. Gathering extensive amounts of useful data, the team were confident that Saturday would be the day to show their true pace.
 
Getting free practice three underway on Saturday morning, Hartley could already feel the improvements on his STR13 during the early part of his first flying lap. However during the latter part of the lap, disaster struck and front left suspension failure sent him flying into the barriers.
 
Testament to the modern safety standards in Formula 1, Brendon walked away from the incident completely unharmed, and his Scuderia Toro Rosso team are now working hard on preparing his car for tomorrow’s race where he will start from the pitlane.
 
Brendon Hartley – #28 Scuderia Toro Rosso:
“Today’s crash is another testament to these modern Formula 1 cars and safety. The fact that I was able to walk away from such an incident with no consequences just shows how far safety has come in the sport. I’m fine, but the car definitely wasn’t!  I’m disappointed I missed out on Qualifying, as yesterday we gathered a lot of data preparing for today, and the first couple of corners the car was feeling pretty good. I was already three or four tenths of a second quicker than yesterday but then, a couple of corners later it was all over – I hit the brake pedal and all of a sudden the front suspension broke. However, I have full faith in everyone that they will get the car rebuilt and ready for the race, I’m remaining optimistic and we’ll come out fighting tomorrow.”
 
Timetable:
Race – 52 Laps
14:10 – 16:10 (Local Time – UTC+1)
01:10 – 03:10 (New Zealand – UTC+12)