Brendon Hartley

Brendon Hartley became the first Formula 1 driver from New Zealand since Mike Thackwell in 1984 Canadian Grand Prix when he stepped in at Toro Rosso for the final four rounds of the 2017 season.

Hartley began racing aged six in karts in his native New Zealand following in his brother Nelson’s footsteps. In 2003 at 13 Hartley won his country’s Formula Ford Festival to bag himself a spot in the following season’s Formula Ford championship before switching to Formula Toyota New Zealand a year after.

At 15, Hartley made the bold move halfway across the world to race in Europe starting in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 and Formula Renault 2.0 NEC series and after two seasons bedding himself into the scenes he made his Formula 3 debut in the Masters of Formula 3 event at Zolder finishing fourth and was signed up to the Red Bull junior programme.

In 2008 he made the full-time switch to the British Formula 3 championship with Carlin and finished third in his rookie year, while also making a number of Masters of Formula 3 appearances and Formula 3 Euroseries appearances before making headlines with a 20^th to third place drive on his Macau Grand Prix debut.

A year later he remained with Carlin in the Formula 3 Euroseries while also competing for Tech 1 in Formula Renault 3.5 series. In 2010, Hartley remained in Formula Renault 3.5 and was partnered by fellow Red Bull junior Daniel Ricciardo but was dropped by Red Bull midway through the season and replaced by Jean-Eric Vergne.

After his GP2 Series debut at the end of 2010, Hartley went back to Formula Renault 3.5 and finished seventh in the drivers’ championship alongside intermittent GP2 Series outings. In 2012 a maiden bow in endurance racing beckoned with Murphy Prototypes in the European Le Mans Series – including a debut at Le Mans – while also acting as Mercedes F1 test driver for a briefly period.

A couple of eye-catching years in endurance racing secured him a drive with Porsche in the World Endurance Championship in 2014 before going on to become world champion a year later alongside Mark Webber and Timo Bernhard.

Hartley tasted Le Mans 24 Hours victory in 2017 for Porsche on his way to a second world title, this time with Earl Bamber and Bernhard, before his surprise recall to the Red Bull fold at Toro Rosso from the F1 United States Grand Prix.

With Porsche pulling its LMP1 effort in the World Endurance Championship at the end of 2017, Hartley secured his future with a full-time switch to F1 with the new-look Toro Rosso-Honda squad for 2018.

While teammate Pierre Gasly was able to hit the ground running in 2018, Hartley had a more difficult time. It took until the German Grand Prix in July for Hartley to score his first F1 point, and while there were some late-season highlights - including a third-row start at Suzuka and a charge to ninth in Austin - it was not enough to save the New Zealander's seat for 2019, with Toro Rosso re-signing Daniil Kvyat to partner Formula 2 race winner Alexander Albon.

Hartley remains part of Porsche's factory driver programme heading into 2019, albeit with no firm racing plans at the time of writing.