Toro Rosso’s Brendon Hartley says he has "a lot of positives" to take into the second half of the Formula 1 season, believing he has made gains after a tough start.
Hartley entered his first full season with Toro Rosso this year after stepping up in late 2017 as a replacement for Renault-bound Carlos Sainz Jr. at Red Bull’s junior team.
Hartley endured a tough sequence of races early on that included a high-speed near-hit with team-mate Pierre Gasly during qualifying in Azerbaijan, and heavy crashes in Spain and Canada.
Hartley, though, feels he has made solid progress in recent rounds, culminating in a top 10 finish in Germany and a Q3 appearance in Hungary.
“Some positives, some ups and also some downs,” Hartley said, reflecting on 2018’s opening half.
“I feel like the second half of the first half of the season I was strong, luck wasn’t always on my side.
“Again [in Hungary] I think I had a strong performance but the way the race worked out I wasn’t able to finish in the points and I didn’t really feel like I put a foot wrong which has been a bit the theme in the last five or six races.
“There were some tough times in the beginning where I made a couple of mistakes, where I had opportunities to capitalise, but I feel in the last four or five races feel like I’ve been on top of things and don’t have the points to show from it.
“There’s been a lot learned, I feel in a good place mentally, even after the rumours and a bit of pressure early on, makes me feel a lot stronger coming out the side of that. See things a lot clearer.”
Hartley added that the end-of-2017 experience should leave him in good stead heading into the second half of the season.
“Yeah definitely, a lot of the circuits I know,” he said. “There’s going to be a few new ones for me. Suzuka. Russia. Singapore.
“I think they’re the three new ones for me and the rest I know which is always positive, looking forward to the second half of the season.”
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