Much of the future Formula One driver movement up until now has relied on the Red Bull F1 team. Will Daniel Ricciardo re-sign with the team and will they decide to stay with Renault power or switch to Honda for the 2019 and beyond seasons?
Another factor seems to have grown considerably over the Canadian Grand Prix weekend is what the McLaren F1 team will do in the future? This appears to revolve around Fernando Alonso, the IndyCar Series, Michael Andretti, Force India and future driver movement.
F1 journalist Joe Saward outlines this in his Notebook from the Capital Grille. Essentially it involves the following:
– Michael Andretti spent the weekend in the F1 paddock at Canada with Zak Brown, the McLaren F1 Team CEO
– Accompanying him was Pieter Rossi, father of Andretti driver (and Indy 500 winner Alexander Rossi)
– It’s likely that Fernando Alonso could race in IndyCar with Andretti in a McLaren badged car in 2019
– There could be an option of an Andretti F1 team in the future?
– Much is being made of the financial troubles of Force India F1 team. It is for sale but the price is reported to be too high for potential buyers
– Along with McLaren/Andretti, Mercedes is another potential buyer as they are owed a considerable sum of money for engines supplied to Force India
So what is this to do with Brendon Hartley?
Hartley has always been confident in his contractual agreement with his Honda powered Scuderia Toro Rosso F1 Team. As we have discussed before, Hartley has a particular role in helping the Red Bull team (Toro Rosso’s owner) in making a decision for engine supply in 2019.
While Ricciardo is likely to stay with Red Bull (I’d put a bet on it), he is obviously waiting for their engine supply decision before he renews his contract.
While speculation before the Canadian Grand Prix was on Brendon Hartley being replaced, the questions that never really got answered was ‘Who with?’
What McLaren are contemplating for the future, the sale of Force India and their tie-up with Mercedes, will all impact on driver movement for 2019.
Saward sees that there is potential for French driver Esteban Ocon (Force India), who is on loan from Mercedes, to go to Renault to replace Red Bull driver Carlos Sainz. Sainz may be an option to replace Alonso, but McLaren are grooming Lando Norris for a future F1 career. In turn McLaren No 2 driver Stoffel Vandoorne’s future in the team is yet to be settled.
Hence, for Toro Rosso to have replaced Hartley may have been premature and not necessarily improving their situation.
And what of the media?
It all went quiet straight after the 2018 Canadian Grand Prix, yet Brendon Hartley crashed on the opening lap. Why? That’s because he proved he is a racer.
History books will show he comprehensively out-qualified his Scuderia Toro Rosso team mate Pierre Gasly. Hartley made it through to Q2, Gasly stayed in Q3.
His crash with Williams F1 driver Lance Stroll was unfortunate, but I don’t hear the criticism for him attempting he pass.
So now we know that Brendon Hartley’s seat is safe at the Scuderia Toro Rosso F1 team, how did all the rumour start? How did it get to such a height of concern for race fans?
Bob McMurray in his nzherald.co.nz column Pressure on Hartley to keep his job 19 May, appears to be the first in New Zealand to raise the apparent rumours within the F1 paddock.
This was backed up with an interview with ex F1 driver and F1 TV commentator Martin Brundle, on McMurray’s regular slot on The Driven Hour on Radio Sport Monday 21 May. It was a very good interview with Brundle who gave a succinct overview of what happens in the F1 paddock, the realities of the rumour mill and even joked about how easy it was to start something to see how far it went. McMurray did the right thing, inviting Brundle, a credible F1 expert to allay our fears and put some sort of explanation to F1 rumours.
Not so, said the nzherald.co.nz
The next day, they picked up on the interview and in their article The vultures are circling Brendon Hartley – former F1 driver, they appear to put put a negative slant on Brundle’s interview, trying to give weight to the speculation!
They followed this up on 7 June with more evidence Strongest hint yet that Brendon Hartley is on the Formula 1 chopping block. Here they translate a remark by Red Bull Motorsport boss Dr Helmut Marko to the German website Speed Week, “The situation around Brendon is not pleasing,” Marko told Speed Week. “We will go through this in peace and see what we can do in the future.”
Other than the Kiwi apexnews.co.nz website, you will struggle to find any other motorsport news outlet who ran with this ‘quote.’
At this stage there had been very little global media attention to Hartley’s situation. Leading up to the Candian Grand Prix, most did pick up and ran with the notion that Lando Norris/McLaren rejected an offer by Toro Rosso to replace Hartley for the rest of the year with the view to replacing Alonso at McLaren in 2019.
Through this time Toro Rosso never made a an official comment.
Harltey’s line and comment was “I know what my contract says, I am very confident in the work that I’ve been doing behind the scenes with Toro Rosso to develop the car.”
That appeared to shut the rumours down, coupled with his performance in qualifying in Canada.
In the end a ‘collective sigh’ went over the nation once Helmut Marko uttered those words “He will be in the car.”
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