Hartley frustrated as luckless run continues with practice crash

Brendon Hartley was left feeling frustrated and annoyed after a suspension failure in final practice for the British Grand Prix on Saturday led to the latest in a sequence of high-speed accidents this year, ruling him out of qualifying at Silverstone.

Hartley suffered a suspension failure under braking at the end of the Wellington Straight early in FP3, causing him to go straight on at Brooklands before being pitched into the barrier at high-speed.

While Hartley was cleared after a trip to the medical centre, his car was too damaged to take part in qualifying, with a change in the monocoque meaning the New Zealander will start from the pit lane on Sunday.

"It was very instantaneous, there was no warning. I didn’t hit any kerbs and there were no vibrations beforehand," Hartley explained.

"The moment that I hit the brake pedal, which is probably some of the highest forces that the suspension sees, something at that very moment broke. Obviously I tried to fight the car, and slow it down as much as I could, but I still hit the wall pretty hard."

"[Toro Rosso] are taking it very seriously, and they’re looking into what happened. I put my trust in the people in the team to make sure that it will be OK for tomorrow."

The crash was not the first of Hartley's season, with incidents in Spain, Monaco and Canada also harming his chances of adding to his solitary F1 point scored earlier this year in Azerbaijan.

Hartley's seat has been at risk at times this year, but not all of the incidents have been the result of driver error, with his run of bad luck only continuing at Silverstone.

"I’m not really a believer in luck or superstition," Hartley said. "We’ve had a series of unfortunate events, not all of them being my fault. This was obviously out of my control. It’s frustrating.

"I’ve had a few of the biggest [crashes] of my life this year. After the third one I said that surely that has to be the last. There’s been a few absolutely out of my control. Obviously Montreal, Monaco, here, not much I could do really. I had a failure in Austria as well which ended my race.

"If it’s luck, sure, I’ve had some unfortunate events happen. It hasn’t broken my spirit. I’ll remain focused and optimistic for tomorrow. I definitely had the pace in the Austria game to score points, and I think tyre life and strategy could be key tomorrow.

"I think there’s no weather around, but the hot temperatures could also play a big factor.

"I’m annoyed not to be in qualifying."