Brendon Hartley felt more prepared for this weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix than he did for his Formula 1 debut in the United States last weekend, and the New Zealander showed his progress by placing thirteenth in the afternoon session at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
The Scuderia Toro Rosso driver lost some time in the morning session due to an engine problem, and also suffered a couple of spins on the low-grip circuit, but he showed a lot of promise by ending up just 1.622 seconds off the ultimate pace set by Daniel Ricciardo.
Hartley feels his short-run pace has improved this weekend after being thrown into the deep end at the Circuit of The Americas, while has also enjoyed positive long runs as he bids to make it through to Q2 for the first time this weekend.
“We had a bit of a slow start this morning because of an engine problem from the word go in FP1, so we lost a bit of time, but the team did a great job to get the car ready for this afternoon’s FP2,” said Hartley.
“I feel I’m getting better on the short-runs and to end up P13 isn’t bad. I learned some good lessons on the longer runs and, even if we had an engine failure, the rest of the day was very positive and I got a lot out of it.
“I’m a lot more well-prepared than a week ago! We will now work hard tonight and I look forward to tomorrow!”
