Coming off the back of a challenging weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, Brendon Hartley was hoping he could return to the sharp end of the action for this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.
 
In the wet Free Practice sessions on Friday, it was evident that the Scuderia Toro Rosso STR13 was a serious contender at the sharp end of the field, with the team hoping for some further rain to boost their chances throughout the remainder of the weekend.
 
However for Qualifying it was dry and the times were much closer throughout the entire field. The midfield in particular being closer than ever, with the final places in Q2 changing with every lap. In the end, Hartley would complete qualifying in P18, however is promoted two places up the starting order as a result of drivers around him being forced to serve grid penalties in tomorrow’s race.
 
Brendon Hartley – #28 Scuderia Toro Rosso:
“It was an incredibly tight Qualifying session today, my last lap wasn’t too bad, I made a bit of a mistake in Turn 1 but the rest of the lap was clean. We could have used a bit of rain this afternoon as we saw yesterday we were quite competitive in the wet. The car didn’t feel too bad and the team’s done a good job to tune the car to something Pierre and I both like. The midfield was incredibly close today which is amazing for F1, but frustrating for me to be on the wrong side of that. There was around one-tenth of a second between Pierre and I, and that made the difference of six positions. It’s a bit disappointing to be 18th because it gives us more work to do tomorrow, but after a couple of penalties we should start higher on the grid.”
 
Timetable:
Race – 53 Laps
15:10 – 17:10 (Local Time – UTC+2)
01:10 – 03:10 (New Zealand – UTC+12)