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Yes and for Hartley it was another big failure. Bad qualifying, damages the front wing on lap 1, speeds in the pits, their pit strategy was just ridiculous. The same as Hamilton though, but at least Hartley should have had fresh hypersofts and he still pits before anyone else (except Hamilton)... why???? He should have run till mid race on those hypers, just like Gasly did on his used hypers. Hartley is supposed to be the guy to conserve and yet he's always doing the opposite strategies. Are they all halfwits on his side of the garage? Instead he pits and puts on the ultrasofts while everyone else around him pits up to 10 laps later and puts on softs, so he has a train of cars behind him on softs all running to the end while he has older ultrasofts on. Bizarre.
He did jump a lot of guys in the pits through the undercut though and it moved him up a few spots but even on ultras he was slower than Gasly on 30 lap old hypers! I can only guess the team didn't have any softs to put on so this was the only strategy they could run. But in that case pitting so early was just moronic. At the end he was closing on Sainz for 11th, but nothing would have happened and he had the 5sec penalty anyway. But it didn't matter because Leclerc took him out.
Just another disappointing run for Brendan meanwhile Gasly is almost DOTR (behind DRic).
It's going to be a case of Brendan losing his drive because his team mate is kicking his ass. But I bet it'll be much like in the juniors when he had who was it Ricciardo and Vergne as team mates. Little did we know then that Ricciardo would end up being one of the best in the world and Vergne's no slouch he'll be FE champ this year. Could one look back on this partnership in 5 years time when Gasly is winning titles and think, Hartley really wasn't that far behind him afterall. Much like Vettel/Bourdais.
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