2018 Scuderia Toro Rosso F1 Team - Honda

[McMika98]

Hartely deserved a good sendout but he didnt warrant an extension for next year. In todays climate where drivers pay millions for a chance to drive in FP1, he got a full year and more in F1 even though he didnt have much to show in single seater formula.
Contrast that with Alex who was in F2 on a race by race basis depending on his funding. I am positive he will suprise a lot of people and the high downforce will help him a lot. Hopefully TR have the backbone of their sister team.

[Espresso]

Yeah, Toro Rosso (Red Bull) might seem a bit harsh. But they are willing to put money in drivers and try en retry them out. Look at all the other teams picking up their 'young driver programs'. And the sudden influx of young drivers especially clear with Ferrari's choice for LeClerc.

In hindsight they must all have known for quite a while this was decided. Hartley's "Thank you to almost all 500..." remark was razorsharp.

Personally I think Hartley was to focused on being a development drivers opposed to racing driver. His experience (and attitude) compared to Gasly brought Honda a lot of constructive feedback opposed to Gasly.
But this attitude put him behind Gasly most of the times who in contrast focussed on getting results.

However amiable his character, him being a teamplayer (with experience and knowledge) benefited Honda and indirectly Red Bull unmistakably but did not directly resulted in race results. For this they might better hang on to him as test driver/reserve driver (speculation follows) before we see Hartley enter the DTM in 2020 in an Aston Martin branded Honda engine.... That would be a great reward for Hartley.

Apart from that it's nice to see Albon in an F1 seat. He performed quite well with the available budget at hand.
And since F1 seats are quite sparse I have to complement STR to try out drivers and giving them a chance.

I'm looking forward and quite curious to see if Kvyat en Albon can deliver in 2019.
It looks like Red Bull is testing en learning to see 'how to spot the gem from dropped out drivers'. They might be cherry picking in the future from other 'young driver programs'...

To close up:

Honda engine chief Toyoharu Tanabe.

He was very strong on the engineering side, always giving very precise and useful feedback, based on his great experience working with hybrid power units and as a double World Champion and Le Mans winner in LMP1.
That feedback accelerated our development in terms of set-up work, which helped us progress over the course of the year.
Thank you Brendon and we wish you all the very best for the future.

General Manager Masashi Yamamoto:

On behalf of Honda, I would like to express my thanks to Brendon for all his hard work this year,
Brendon is always a friendly and charming person who immediately embraced Japanese culture and Honda’s way
It gave everyone at Honda so much power and confidence in what we were doing this year after several difficult seasons.
I particularly remember when he qualified sixth at our home race in Suzuka. That meant a lot to Honda. We will miss him and wish him all the best for the future.

Toro Rosso:

Thank you for your commitment this year, Brendon!
All the best for the future!

https://twitter.com/ToroRosso/status/10 ... 0738313216

[nzjrs]

Totally agree with Espresso there.

[Wouter]

And a video of Honda to thank Brendon again.
This should have come from STR.

https://twitter.com/HondaRacingF1/statu ... 2091964417

[WaikeCU]

Honestly, if Verstappen and Red Bull wins the Championship next season, I'd see Red Bull only praising how brilliant Max and Pierre are when a lot of people on the inside know that Brendon had a fair share with developing that Honda PU to certain degree.

[dren]

I'm not sure how much credit can be given to Hartley. I'm sure he had some feedback for the engineers, but this just looks like Honda being respectful to a driver being let go.

[Big Tea]

I'm not sure how much credit can be given to Hartley. I'm sure he had some feedback for the engineers, but this just looks like Honda being respectful to a driver being let go.

I have to agree with this. Hartley is a nice guy, I would have liked to see him do well, but he was employed as a race driver, his job was to get points on Sunday. Yes, this changed as the year went on, but he was already in place as a race driver by then, not a development driver.

Still nice to see Honda giving him credit though, and I hope they keep him in their sports devision.

[gshevlin]

So, in the space of 4 days, Toro Rosso drops Brendon Hartley, signs Alexander Albon, and apart from 1 brief message on Twitter from the team's social media co-ordinator, Toro Rosso does not mention Brendon's name. However, they immediately scrub him from their website.
In the meantime, Honda issues a fulsome written statement to Brendon, including thanks from senior F1 program leadership, then follows it up 2 days later with a tribute video.
Finally, 4 days after the news of Albon's signing is announced, Toro Rosso issues a boilerplate "thanks Brendon" statement supposedly penned by Franz Tost.
It doesn't matter which way you process or analyze this series of events, it is clear that Honda know how to respectfully thank a departing contributor, and Toro Rosso have no clue. Toro Rosso (and by extension, Red Bull) have provided a casebook example of a violation of Bob Sutton's "no asshole rule".

[nzjrs]

They finally issued a statement. Absolute garbage https://scuderiatororosso.redbull.com/e ... ks-brendon

[McG]

A very strange bunch of posts about a driver being let go. Must be his long blonde hair.

Say bye bye to a below average driver of a below average team with a well below average engine, then move on.

[TAG]

Isn't Hartly just as much a Le Mans 24 hour winner as Alonso?

[Big Tea]

Isn't Hartly just as much a Le Mans 24 hour winner as Alonso?

Shame he could not get Monaco too We would know where he was off next then.

[TAG]

Mark Webber should go then, might as well take a shot at it since all of the sudden that's the en vogue thing.

[Big Tea]

Mark Webber should go then, might as well take a shot at it since all of the sudden that's the en vogue thing.

I had not remembered that he was a LM winner.
Why not?

[marmer]

Isn't Hartly just as much a Le Mans 24 hour winner as Alonso?

Not so the year Brendon won he was in the only lmp1 car to finish the race so you could argue he had a slightly easier job than Alonso