Scuderia Toro Rosso driver Brendon Hartley has finished the Singapore Grand Prix in 17th position. The Kiwi F1 driver had hopes of a better finish but luck was neither with him or against him.
“We rolled the dice today and decided to pit early, I was quicker than the guys in front being on the Hypersoft,” commented Hartley. “We changed to the Ultrasoft and a lot of people covered us which put us back in traffic, so it didn’t really work out.
“We decided to do another pit stop and I got stuck behind the Williams and lost a place to Magnussen, there was a couple of good scraps out there but we didn’t have the pace for points today.
“It’s disappointing as we had high hopes for Singapore. It was a tough race, we got to the end but there’s no celebrations today. We chose to start on the Hypersoft because we knew we potentially had better tyre life than others around us, and we hoped we could make ground on the first lap.
“It was a bit tricky because Ocon went into the wall, but we were very competitive in the first stint on the Hypersoft. We tried to do something different to move up the field, but it didn’t work out.”
His team mate Pierre Gasly fared little better finishing in 13th.
“It was a bit of a strange race today. I had a good start, recovered three positions and was P12 after the first lap,” said Gasly. “We gambled with the tyres and started with the Hypersoft, but in the end it was much more difficult than we thought and I really struggled to make them last at the end of the stint.
“After the first pit stop, I was in the mess with Sirotkin and Grosjean, and with all of the blue flags I lost quite a bit of time. I tried to do the maximum inside of the car, but I didn’t have the pace to fight for points all weekend.”
Team principal Franz Tost
“We were quite optimistic arriving in Singapore that we could score some points because we have been quite competitive here in previous years. However, we didn’t show the pace required to finish inside the top 10, so we need to analyse why we didn’t perform as expected, and what we have to change to increase our performance for the next races.
“Pierre made a very good start, he was able to gain a couple of positions and he defended well until his pit stop, while Brendon gained a position and avoided the incident at Turn 3. At the beginning we thought we could bring Pierre close to the top 10, but as the race went on the pace was not there which meant we were unable to achieve a points position.”
Race results
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 61 1h51m11.611s
2 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Renault 61 8.961s
3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 61 39.945s
4 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 61 51.930s
5 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 61 53.001s
6 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull/Renault 61 53.982s
7 Fernando Alonso McLaren/Renault 61 1m43.011s
8 Carlos Sainz Renault 60 1 Lap
9 Charles Leclerc Sauber/Ferrari 60 1 Lap
10 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 60 1 Lap
11 Marcus Ericsson Sauber/Ferrari 60 1 Lap
12 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren/Renault 60 1 Lap
13 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso/Honda 60 1 Lap
14 Lance Stroll Williams/Mercedes 60 1 Lap
15 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 60 1 Lap
16 Sergio Perez Force India/Mercedes 60 1 Lap
17 Brendon Hartley Toro Rosso/Honda 60 1 Lap
18 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 59 2 Laps
19 Sergey Sirotkin Williams/Mercedes 59 2 Laps
– Esteban Ocon Force India/Mercedes 0 Collision
Comments