Brendon Hartley insists he still has “full faith” in his Toro Rosso team and is ready to go in the British Grand Prix following his scary suspension failure in final practice on Saturday.
The Kiwi was left nothing more than a passenger as his front-left simply exploded the moment he touched the brakes entering Brooklands, sending his car into the gravel and almost rolling metres before hitting the tyre barrier.
He was taken to the medical centre and soon released after being given the OK, and the FIA requested the junior Red Bull to change all suspension parts on Pierre Gasly’s car as a precaution, as the former WEC champion explained what happened.
“It was very instantaneous,” he said. “There was no warning.
“I didn’t hit any kerbs and there were no vibrations beforehand, [it happened] the moment that I hit the brake pedal.
“Obviously I tried to fight the car, and slow it down as much as I could, but I still hit the wall pretty hard.”
During the few seconds between the failure and the heavy impact with the tyre barrier, Hartley also revealed what was going through his mind.
“There’s very little time in the car to be scared. There’s too much focus and other things going on,” he claimed.
“Maybe the last one or two seconds when I realised: ‘Yep, I’m definitely going to hit the wall pretty hard’, and you brace yourself.
“It’s not fun. I wouldn’t say it’s scary. You’re so focused on the race car and you have adrenaline. I wouldn’t say fear really comes into it.”
Indeed, now his focus is on simply doing the best he can in the race, as he will start from the pit lane.
“I have full faith in everyone that they’ll get the car ready for tomorrow and hopefully have a good race,” he said.
“As a driver, I think you tend not to think about those things (the possibility of another failure), because if you do, you’ll lose lap time out there,” he said. “I know everyone’s not taking it lightly.”