Latest / Rusty's Garage / Brendon Hartley (Part 1)

Transcript

Brendon Hartley (Part 1) · Rusty's Garage

0:02
A listener production.
0:10
I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
0:28
I'm in New Zealand for this ep in the centre of the North Island.
0:32
And I can't tell you how good it is to be recording an ep face to face.
0:37
I love the whole period of innovation during COVID-19 and many of those new methods we'll use for future guests wherever they are in the world.
0:45
My guest today though is a former Formula One driver and sports car racer, Brendan Hartley.
0:51
We've been able to tee this up just before he jets back to Europe for work with the Toyota team's World Endurance Championship program and with another outfit in the all-electric Formula E program.
1:03
I'll get his thoughts on that later for you.
1:05
You may remember Brendan from his time with Scuderia Toro Rosso in Formula 1 from late 2017 to 2018.
1:13
How he came to get that seat is quite a story.
1:17
Purist, though, will know he's a two-time world champion in sports cars with Porsche and a winner of one of the greatest races on the calendar, the Le Mans 24-hour.
1:28
As you'll hear, he went close to a plum gig in America as well, and he learned at times of adversity to get the whiteboard out and remap his career.
1:38
He's such a good bloke that even though he lost some critical Red Bull backing as a junior in 2010,
1:45
They still took his call and he was able to kind of return to the fold against the odds.
1:50
We start with some background on early life, which was a long way from the circuits in Europe that would become something of a backyard by his mid-teens.
2:00
Yeah, so Palmy North, central North Island.
2:04
I liked growing up there.
2:05
It gets a bit of flack.
2:06
I think there was a very famous quote by John Cleese who, I think he said it was one of the most depressing places on earth or something silly like that, but I love growing up there and I'm a big advocate of the region and friends and family are still very much there and always visit once a year over Christmas.
2:21
And yeah, earliest memories there were...
2:23
out at Manfield, which was just down the road and at the go-kart track.
2:26
And I was, yeah, very much grew up watching my old man and then also my brother race before me and I had the bug for as long as I can remember.
2:35
We'll talk more about both of them in a second, but you've just illustrated the fact that you're from a proper motor racing family.
2:42
So you grew up around it.
2:43
Your dad raced successfully in all kinds of things from speedway to circuit racing.
2:48
I would imagine they're the earliest memories.
2:50
What springs to mind for you?
2:52
What was kind of the first time you can recall him racing and where were you?
2:56
I remember plenty of times either being at the Munalto Speedway.
2:59
So he used to race a Sullivan car on dirt.
3:03
But also being out at Manfield, I don't know what my earliest memory would be, but I remember being a little fella just running around the pits and paddock.
3:10
I remember watching him race Formula Holden against the likes of Murphy.
3:14
I actually remember being when Murphy went over the fence at the sweeper.
3:18
I was there, mate, running to see if he was all right.
3:21
It'll make him feel very old if I tell him how old I was.
3:24
How old were you, Colin?
3:25
I must have been less than five, but someone can do the maths on what year that was.
3:31
But yeah, nothing exactly springs to mind, but like I say, as a young fellow, my life really consisted of school and being at a racetrack, either watching my old man in the very early days or then go-karting from the age of six that started then.
3:44
And my life really revolved around, well, the whole family's life revolved around motorsport.
3:49
Am I right in saying he's a very good engine builder and known around the country and beyond for that?
3:55
Am I right in saying he's a two-time New Zealand champion in those saloon cars you were talking about before?
4:00
That might be right.
4:01
Yeah.
4:01
He's actually on his way here.
4:02
He'll be here in a couple of hours, so he'll be able to tell you.
4:04
But I think that sounds about right.
4:06
I think he was mini champ a couple of times as well.
4:09
And he was a mini champ.
4:10
And I always used to give Mark Webber a lot of stick because he actually raced against Mark.
4:16
I think it was in the very first Melbourne Grand Prix from the Holden.
4:19
Because I was teammates with Mark, you see.
4:20
And I was like, yeah, you raced against my old man.
4:22
But unfortunately, Mark won the race.
4:23
So I could only give him so much shit about it.
4:26
You know, it just kind of ended there.
4:28
But...
4:29
Yeah, he did race all sorts over the years and was a...
4:33
bit of a grafter, you know, like hearing the stories from him, you know, he never had a budget.
4:37
He'd buy a car that was crashed the year before and, you know, do it up and prepare it himself and get it ready for the next year when he raced from Atlantics, you know, which was a big series back in the day.
4:47
And, you know, always on a bit of a budget, but a bit of Kiwi ingenuity.
4:51
And I think, you know, like many of us Kiwis, not all of us had the opportunities like I've had to go overseas, but I think he was, yeah, definitely pretty handy.
5:00
One of those cars that he ended up repairing, I think, was a Formula Atlantic campaign by KK Rosberg.
5:07
Is that correct?
5:08
And he spent quite a bit of time repairing that car, didn't he?
5:11
It's funny because I remember him telling me that story many times over the years.
5:15
And I told a reporter that story a couple of months ago about how he bought one of KK's cars one year that had been crashed.
5:22
And it was...
5:23
And then I had dad quickly ringing me and telling me it was actually someone else's car.
5:26
So I don't know if it's dad been twisting the story for all those years and like bigging it up and saying it was KK's but it was someone else's.
5:33
But, you know, you never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
5:36
But in any case, you know, he...
5:40
He was always on a tight budget, but yeah, hearing the stories from him, motorsport was very different back then.
5:45
And, you know, when you see some of the pictures of, you know, the picture of him in the minis back in the day with a full field, full crowd down at Manfield.
5:52
And I think, yeah, there was some probably pretty golden years when he was racing and it's kind of envious actually of how it looked back in New Zealand motorsport back then.
6:00
It looked pretty awesome.
6:02
True or false, your middle name is Morris after the Morris minor.
6:08
Yeah, Morris Minor or Mini.
6:10
I would say probably more Mini.
6:12
But again, you'd have to ask Dad.
6:15
But yeah, no, so I've in fact got a Morris Mini in the garage.
6:19
I grew up loving Minis, and I think it was partly because I had a VHS...
6:25
tape of dad winning a mini race and i used to watch it over and over when i was when i was really young and i always had a little fascination with minis and it's kind of in the family my brother actually went to um bonneville must have been three four years ago probably more actually now um and broke the land speed record in a mini so dad and my brother built the engine it was prepared by um you know gary orton and his team and they went over to bonneville and and i had
6:49
I think they did 170 odd mile an hour in a 1000cc Mini.
6:52
So original 1000cc.
6:54
So yeah, Mini's definitely in the blood and I've always loved them.
6:56
So we've actually got one in the garage, 1967 Cooper S. Sarah and I drive it down to the shops a couple of times a week.
7:03
And yeah, love it, mate.
7:04
I get such a thrill by driving some of the old stuff and just, it's got character and it's fun.
7:08
Tell us a little bit more about that.
7:10
Red in colour, beautifully restored.
7:11
Where did you kind of track it down?
7:13
You don't have to do too much to it, do you?
7:15
Nah.
7:16
So I didn't restore it myself, but we found it on Trade Me, and it was a guy down in Capity.
7:23
We touched base with him.
7:23
We heard the full story.
7:24
He'd owned it for 30 years.
7:25
It was – yeah, he'd fully restored it.
7:27
It was, you know, his little labour of love and –
7:31
Yeah, he was moving on and I think he was pretty happy.
7:33
It was going to an owner that was gonna take care of it.
7:38
And yeah, it's our little pride and joy here in Taupo.
7:40
The best part is that you're actually driving it still, which I think is cool.
7:43
It's not just sort of gathering dust in the garage.
7:46
I wanna come back to your brother just for one second, Nelson,
7:49
as you rightly point out about that land speed record, his endeavours, his feats did filter back to some of the race teams abroad.
7:58
They kind of gave you stick about being the second fastest Hartley or something, is that true, in some of the race teams?
8:04
Oh yeah, 100% I've heard that.
8:06
No, actually when I was at Le Mans a few years, there is actually a good story.
8:10
So my second Le Mans in 2012, my brother came over to support, watch the race.
8:17
He was actually doing the driver changes during the pit stop.
8:19
So he got part of the team.
8:21
The funny thing was I missed my flight to get back to Le Mans for the race.
8:28
the scrutineering so i don't know anyone who is familiar with um lamore one week before you have a scrutineering day there's a huge crowd it's where all the the photos taken for the whole week but i was racing for an irish team at the time and um the team owner thought it would be a good laugh just to throw nelson in the race suit so if you actually go through the history books for the lamore 2013 all the official photos is actually nelson standing there in my in my race suit but
8:52
The funny thing, it was incredibly awkward for him because after everyone thought it was me and he started signing autographs, he wasn't sure whether to sign autographs or not.
8:59
And he reckons people were kind of yelling and screaming at him because he wasn't signing autographs.
9:03
So there's probably a whole lot of people that think I'm an arsehole now because he's – but, yeah, it was a funny story that if you ever look up the images from the 2013 Le Mans, he's actually there standing in my race suit.
9:13
I loved it.
9:14
And he has given me a little bit of an insight into you for this chat, which is terrific.
9:18
And the podcast over time... Oh, God.
9:20
No, no, it's good.
9:21
It's okay.
9:22
We've got a couple of good yarns.
9:23
Don't believe everything you said.
9:25
Don't believe?
9:25
Okay, okay.
9:27
The podcast at times ends up being...
9:31
athletes whose chosen path or tool just happens to be motor racing.
9:36
And they, you know, they still have an attachment or a love of cars.
9:39
And there are others that are, I spoke to Daria Franchitti recently, who's, you know, just a diehard car guy.
9:45
I sense a new love of car, but...
9:49
Athlete, competitive spirit, you know, real competitive spirit.
9:53
And he says, Nelson says, this started to come out at a very young age.
9:59
And he recalls you guys going to your cousins for a Sunday roast lunch.
10:05
And he reckons- I'm not sure I've heard this story.
10:08
Really?
10:08
Okay, okay.
10:10
He says you were playing some sort of Sega racing game back in the day.
10:15
Oh, I don't believe it, by the way.
10:17
But go on.
10:18
He's told the story lots of times, and I still don't believe him, but that's fine.
10:21
You fill in the blanks for everyone.
10:22
No, you go on.
10:24
He claims that you're all lining up to have a go, and you were kind of two or three away in the queue from having your turn.
10:33
Now you complete it.
10:34
Whether it's factual or not, what do you reckon he says happened?
10:37
he thinks I was so committed to getting my turn and obviously going for the fastest lap or biggest score or whatever it was that I ended up just peeing my pants, just to not lose my spot.
10:48
That's what he claims.
10:49
I mean, I would claim that's quite big dedication and I'm sure athletes have done worse to succeed, but yeah, I'm not convinced that's a true story, but he does claim that that happens.
10:59
He paid you a great compliment in the sense that he said, you know, you're really,
11:05
smart motor racer.
11:07
A lot of that has come through experience over time, but the way you've applied yourself as well.
11:11
But he could tell even from a young age, the way you would take things in for your age gap between you guys.
11:19
And even when you first started, you were barely six, I think, when you first started go-karting.
11:24
But even then, he felt that you would be
11:26
wandering around looking at his cart, which I would imagine was probably in a different class, and looking at things that were different and reasons why his may have been faster perhaps than yours.
11:38
Yeah, I think I realised pretty early on that I was a very competitive person, as you said.
11:42
And I think that is part of being any sports person.
11:45
If you don't have that competitive drive, I mean, you need some sort of competitive drive.
11:51
But I do...
11:53
always recollect my very first go-kart race so I just turned six um I'd been out to the go-kart track for my very first test day um and I think that is the one and the one and only time myself and my and my brother have actually raced in the same race together so he's so he's 10 years old so he's just on the edge of moving up from cadet to to junior restricted which is in go-karts and
12:15
And here I am at six years old having my very first race.
12:18
So naturally, he's going to kick my butt.
12:20
He's going to lap me more or less.
12:22
But we've done the test day, and I was pretty upset how far off the pace I was.
12:27
And I'll never forget getting back to the house.
12:31
The two carts were sitting there.
12:32
and I was inspecting and trying to figure out what was different about his car and I'd already nailed that he'd had different gearing on.
12:37
I mean, he's going a lot quicker.
12:38
He needed as much smaller gear on there.
12:41
Different NASA panels and wheels and tyres and I started already giving out then and making it, you know, giving out to my old man that I wanted better race gear.
12:47
So I'm not sure if that's a good quality or not, but it was pretty clear from the word go that I had a drive to want to win, which I guess is...
12:56
It's a big part of any sport, you know.
12:57
I mean, I think what you learn with experience is actually how to take the losers as well, you know, because you can't always win.
13:04
And I think that's something that I've learned, particularly in the last 10 years racing in Europe and having a lot of ups and downs is,
13:11
actually you have to take the good with the bad and actually finding a way to turn those difficult times.
13:17
As a young fellow, it's very hard to understand when things aren't going well or you're making a mistake, how that can ever become a positive.
13:23
But I think with experience, I have been able to learn that a mistake or an issue or whatever it can be, if you can look at it like, okay, I can learn from that.
13:31
That's mega that I've had that experience.
13:33
How do I improve that for next time?
13:35
If you can harness those negative situations and actually turn it into positive, that's been the big thing for me to...
13:41
to improve myself going forward.
13:42
Because I think as a young fellow, I was probably too competitive and I'm sure I upset all sorts of people.
13:46
And, yeah, you know, normal being a young, competitive, egotistical driver, but I think I've moved on a little bit from there and understand a little bit more how to get the most out of things.
13:58
That's a great life takeout, irrespective of motor racing, I reckon.
14:02
Yeah, and not even with just...
14:06
driving mistakes.
14:07
I've noticed, I've realized recently, you know, if you have whatever the hard situation in the career is, you can always put a positive spin on it.
14:16
And if you can do that and get that positive out of it, that's how you can actually move forward.
14:21
You know, I think a lot of people dwell on the negatives and dwell on...
14:26
Yeah, if it's a mistake, if it's losing your drive, whatever it is, I think that always can be looked at in a positive way.
14:31
In some, even if it's a small thing, there's always a positive to take out of it, in my opinion.
14:37
We'll come back over your career in a second, but where you're going with this discussion leads me directly to your time in Formula One.
14:44
And in some respects, on a record sheet, it's brief, whatever it was, 25 odd races, four points.
14:54
But...
14:57
I understand from another chat that you did recently that you have kind of compartmentalised it like that, haven't you?
15:01
You've looked back and found the positives.
15:03
You know that by and large you put the best that you could on the table at the time.
15:06
Lots of things unfolded and there's plenty of drivers that can tell that sort of story, isn't there?
15:11
Yeah, I mean, I look back at the time in Formula One in a very positive light.
15:18
I think there's a lot of drivers, New Zealand drivers, Australian drivers, wherever you're from, there's plenty of drivers out there that could have made it to Formula 1 and didn't for whatever reason.
15:29
I felt very lucky and I was in a pretty unique position to actually get to Formula 1.
15:37
So, I mean, that in itself is something positive to look back on.
15:41
Of course, I would have liked to have continued there for longer.
15:45
But just to have that opportunity for one year was huge.
15:48
And I don't have any regrets.
15:50
I mean, okay, yeah, at the start of the season, maybe one or two things going differently, one or two things falling my way, maybe not making a mistake when, you know, in a crucial moment, things could have turned out better.
16:01
completely different.
16:02
But that's, you know, that's motorsport.
16:05
And I think I definitely grew through the year and I finished a lot stronger than I started.
16:11
But it's not, you know, there's a lot more to from the mind.
16:13
I don't want to go into all the politics.
16:15
But, yeah, I don't look back in a negative way and I don't,
16:20
Yeah, I feel incredibly lucky that I got there to start with.
16:23
And I'm very proud of the story of how I got there.
16:27
And I lost my drive with Red Bull 10 years before, and here I was 10 years later in Formula One with Red Bull.
16:36
And that journey to get there, yeah, I'm proud of that story.
16:38
And there were plenty of ups and downs on the way.
16:40
And I've still got a successful career in motorsport, yeah.
16:43
Most definitely you do.
16:44
You're to be credited for that because you effectively picked up the phone
16:49
called Helmut Marko again and started chatting with him and reinforced the fact that you were more, in your eyes, and certainly on paper a more complete driver in terms of what you were offering when that Toro Rosso opportunity presented.
17:04
Yeah, I mean, I definitely got the timing right, but at the same time I saw an opportunity and I took it.
17:14
Yeah, I think a lot of the times in motorsport timing is key.
17:17
And I'd actually just found out that Porsche would be pulling out of LMP1, which I'd been in for four years, which was a big blow.
17:24
And again, I took that as an opportunity.
17:28
Okay, so what's next?
17:29
What opportunities are out there?
17:30
IndyCar was a potential, wasn't it?
17:33
Yeah, another story.
17:34
It's a long one, but I was pretty close to heading to the US as well.
17:40
Yeah, even had a contract to be in the US.
17:43
But yeah, the whole Formula One situation happened very quickly, but without making that phone call to Helmut Marko and just putting myself out there, it wouldn't have happened.
17:50
And I think that even goes back to when I got the drive at Porsche, I think I was a bit of a wild card and no one was really expecting me to get that drive.
17:58
You know, they'd had 100 drivers call them up, a lot of people with endurance experience.
18:02
I'd just come onto the endurance scene, but I did pick up the phone and make that phone call to Porsche.
18:09
I think that a lot of people don't sometimes take those opportunities or pick up the phone or expect those opportunities to come to them without actually making an effort.
18:16
So, yeah, I think definitely timing was key, but, yeah, at least I did pick up the phone and ask the question.
18:25
So does that mean then, hypothetically, that IndyCar is still on the box to be ticked list for you?
18:32
I mean, you're only 30 now.
18:35
Yeah, it's not something I'm actively pursuing right now.
18:36
So I'm really happy to be with Toyota and the WEC.
18:41
So I'm back to Le Mans.
18:42
I should have been there this weekend.
18:43
I'm actually about to do the 24-hour virtual Le Mans.
18:47
I'm sure you're probably going to ask me about some virtual stuff later.
18:50
But hopefully the Le Mans 24-hour will take place at the end of the year.
18:53
So I'm super happy to be back in endurance racing.
18:56
And it's something I didn't dream of racing as a kid, but it's something I fell in love with when I went to Le Mans for the first time.
19:03
So I feel very happy to be back where I am in that program.
19:07
I think the future looks bright there.
19:09
But a lot of people ask me about what the future holds.
19:12
You just never know.
19:13
And the whole Formula One story is proof of that.
19:17
If you asked me two or three years before and asked, do I have a realistic chance of being in Formula One, I would have said, no, not really.
19:23
But there I was and I was there two years later.
19:26
So you can never say...
19:28
never to any opportunity.
19:30
But what I would say is right now I'm very happy with what I'm doing and I think the recovery after losing my drive in Formula One, I couldn't be in a better place.
19:39
I'm so happy to be back at the top level of endurance racing.
19:42
I want to rewind the clock a little bit.
19:44
You had a great opportunity present with Red Bull to go to Europe as a young man.
19:50
You were, I think, 15.
19:52
It's an incredibly tough system in many ways, but if you can get on board, it's immensely beneficial in that early part of your career.
20:00
As a 15-year-old kid heading over, tell me how that felt, where you went for that assessment, that test, and how that all played out.
20:08
So yeah, 15 years old, again similar stories to what I said before about Porsche getting to Formula 1 together with Kenny Smith who was helping me and mentoring me back then, we sent an email to Helmut Marko.
20:21
We got his contact from a guy named Jeremy Shaw who's an American and he was bringing American drivers over.
20:28
Jeremy, Jeremy.
20:29
Yeah, great guy and he brought American drivers over to New Zealand in Formula Ford.
20:33
who I raced against, and he saw a bit of talent in me, I was doing a good job, and he was happy enough to pass on Helmut Marko's contact.
20:41
So we sent an email to Helmut Marko, and you're gonna laugh, but I don't remember the exact number, but I think we were looking for 10,000 or 15,000 dollars worth of sponsorship.
20:49
I mean, we just didn't have any money.
20:51
We saw a few V8 supercar drivers popping up with Red Bull helmets.
20:54
We said, okay, look, we were desperate for a bit of funding.
20:57
We were doing Formula Ford with myself, my brother, and my father.
21:01
I was, I should, we should talk about my brother later because he's, he's been a, yeah, without him, I definitely wouldn't have got to where I was today as well with the help that he gave in those early days.
21:10
But anyway, we were, you know, we were just looking for money.
21:15
And sorry, this was actually in a year later, I was racing Toyota racing series.
21:20
So we sent this email saying, take a look, you know, I'm racing in New Zealand.
21:25
Again, timing was great because Toyota Racing Series launched.
21:29
It kind of went international.
21:30
People were watching it all around the world.
21:32
International drivers were coming over to race in New Zealand.
21:34
It had cachet, didn't it?
21:35
Yes.
21:37
I won the very first Toyota Racing Series race.
21:41
And about two or three months after we sent that original email, just looking for a bit of Red Bull sponsorship, we got sent back what felt like a 100-page contract.
21:52
And as a 15-year-old, it was incredibly overwhelming to try and understand what that meant.
21:57
And going through all the clauses, and that was definitely the first time I'd ever seen a contract or tried to understand one.
22:04
But basically what the contract was, was an opportunity to fly to Europe and do a young driver test.
22:11
If I did a good job, then that contract would be countersigned by them and I was going to be part of the Red Bull development program.
22:17
So...
22:19
It was actually at the same time as the end of year exams.
22:22
We couldn't get compassionate consideration, so I actually didn't complete my end of year exams.
22:28
Actually, the school in general was very supportive, so I shouldn't... Yeah, I'm not trying to have a go at them.
22:34
They were very supportive of all my racing exploits, you know, all the weekends away and Fridays away.
22:42
But yeah, so I didn't complete the end of your exams.
22:46
Flew to Estoril.
22:48
There was about 20 drivers and I was one of the four selected and that was it.
22:52
We were assigned with Red Bull and left home, friends, school, family the following year, so I was then 16.
23:01
But looking back on it, the thing that sometimes surprises me is that
23:06
There was no question at that time.
23:07
It was, you know, there was no discussion with my parents.
23:09
It was such a big opportunity.
23:11
It was such a...
23:13
an opportunity that we would, you know, I don't come from a family with a lot of money, you know, go-karting, it was myself and my dad after school, obviously dad building us a great engine, but you know, it was everything done ourself.
23:23
We didn't have a lot of budget.
23:24
Going to Europe was never on the cards.
23:26
That was never really a realistic option.
23:29
So that when this opportunity presented itself, there was, you know, from my mom, there was no discussion about me leaving and,
23:37
Looking now and chatting to a 15 or 16 year old, I say, wow, I was that young when I hopped on a plane and left to go to the other side of the world.
23:44
And although I was pretty handy with numbers at school, I was one of the top of my school of maths.
23:49
I was terrible at language and probably worse at geography.
23:54
So half these countries I was now going and driving and I could barely locate on the map.
23:58
You know, I'd never heard of them before.
23:59
So it was pretty green and it was a pretty steep learning experience.
24:04
But yeah, long time ago.
24:18
That weird feeling when you are stopped at the lights, and the turning lane next to you starts moving and you feel like you are going backwards.
24:25
So you push the brake in harder.
24:27
You know what I'm talking about.
24:30
Let's expand on Nelson for a moment, your brother.
24:32
He's gone on to do some great things as an engineer, very good racer himself.
24:37
I think he's back doing some karting at the moment and actually really enjoying it.
24:42
But I think he's reflected to someone recently that a lot of the learnings that he did in his own career was something that you were able to benefit from four years his junior, and that helped you a lot in many different ways, didn't it?
24:55
Yeah, 100%.
24:56
I don't know if he's told you that, but I would have told you the same anyway.
24:59
He doesn't mind picking himself up, but honestly, I have...
25:04
He did pump your toes.
25:06
No, I was going to say that anyway.
25:08
And again, I felt very lucky throughout my whole career because he...
25:15
He was four years ahead of me, so himself and my dad would spend four years, if it was developing, go-karting, perfecting everything, then I would kind of come along and have the finished product, which probably goes in hand wide.
25:30
He's ended up as an incredible engineer.
25:34
I rate him so highly.
25:37
It pains me that, you know, I think he's going to have a big break very shortly because I know what he's capable of as an engineer.
25:43
I mean, what he's pumping out in terms of engines and designing products, got a 5X CNC machine, 3D printing things that...
25:50
He's a one-man show in terms of the design process and he...
25:55
I have incredible respect for what he's able to do, and he's got a lot of exciting projects coming up.
25:59
But I think that kind of goes hand in hand.
26:01
He was always the engineer in developing this finished product.
26:03
So Formula Ford, he did three or four years of it, and then here I came along as a pesky 13-year-old, hopped in the finished product.
26:11
I think I won my first race out at Manfield, but I didn't have to go through that whole development process.
26:15
So, yeah, I was...
26:17
fortunate to kind of follow in his footsteps.
26:20
I was definitely lucky to get the hand-me-downs.
26:21
You know, you normally don't want the hand-me-downs, but in this case, it was definitely a good thing to get the hand-me-downs from my big brother who spent all that time developing it, yeah.
26:29
When you got to Auschwitz-Leibn, you couldn't drive a car.
26:33
You weren't technically old enough in Europe to do that, but you were back home here in New Zealand.
26:37
And am I right in saying you had a little Honda Civic?
26:39
Was that your first car?
26:41
My first car was a Honda Civic, yeah.
26:43
So I must have had that...
26:47
I think I must have my license of 15 in New Zealand.
26:48
Is that right?
26:49
Yeah, 15.
26:49
Yeah, I don't know if it's changed now.
26:51
So, yeah, I had a Honda Civic.
26:53
And then, as you say, moving to Europe, I was too young to drive.
26:56
I think I could have had a scooter, but I didn't.
26:59
So, yeah, moving to...
27:02
Osher Slaben, which if anyone doesn't know, that's in East Germany.
27:05
There's a racetrack there.
27:07
It's the middle of nowhere.
27:08
It's not really somewhere you would go to live other than if there's a reason to be there.
27:14
So that was the race team, was two minutes down the road.
27:17
You literally lived at the, correct me if I'm wrong, at the workshop, did you more or less?
27:21
Yeah, not far off, to be honest.
27:22
I'm with a couple of other drivers.
27:23
So I was with an Australian driver, actually, Nathan Internis, and an American driver, John Edwards.
27:31
All Red Bull drivers.
27:32
I think you said, yeah.
27:33
BMW driver.
27:34
So we had good fun together.
27:35
We used to hop on the train and go to the closest town, Magdeburg.
27:38
We'd hop on our, we had our push bikes.
27:40
No one spoke a word of English in the whole town.
27:44
But yeah, it was a big learning experience in that first year thinking, you know, I traveled all around Europe and discovered all these countries.
27:51
As I said, I couldn't even locate on the map before and started experiencing all these different cultures and how different teams were working.
27:59
Yeah, a lot of life lessons in a very short period of time.
28:02
And a lot of things that I would have never learned at school, as you could imagine, traveling around Europe with a race team and going to all these different countries and cities, yeah.
28:11
And to Red Bull training camps and seeing people like Sebastian Vettel and competing in the junior formula where you'd have success and importantly, in a big field too, Brendan, like 40 odd cars, I think, wasn't it?
28:25
Yeah, so the first year,
28:29
I wouldn't say it was very successful.
28:30
I think it was definitely a steep learning yet.
28:32
Also just being out of my comfort zone.
28:35
That first year in Europe, I had a lot of homesickness.
28:37
I missed New Zealand a lot.
28:39
And I think for anyone who hasn't traveled, they probably won't quite appreciate this, but anyone who has lived abroad for a short amount of time, I think you start to...
28:51
really become very patriotic and appreciate New Zealand a lot more than what you did before.
28:54
You know, growing up in New Zealand, it's all normal.
28:57
It's all great.
28:57
But, you know, you don't think anything.
28:59
You don't think too much of it.
29:01
But when you go abroad, you start to miss those little things and realize what a great country we do live in.
29:06
And I'm not complaining about, you know, where I was living, but just very different, you know.
29:09
So that first year was tough for me, you know, being away from friends and family and just a lot of new things, not just the driving of the cars, but, you know, just the different
29:21
you know, being in a part of a company like Red Bull or being a bit more in the media eye, doing interviews, you know, a bit.
29:28
There was just so much learning in that first year and I wouldn't say it was the best start.
29:33
But the second year was a big turning point and I won the European Championship in Formula Renault.
29:38
And as you say, that was 40 or 50 cars.
29:42
So that was really the big... Winning a European championship is what every driver's looking for.
29:48
And that was the biggest junior formula at the time.
29:51
As you would go, clearly Red Bull give you the opportunity.
29:57
And that came in...
30:01
Enormous is not quite the right word, but it came in a very busy sense.
30:04
You had a patch of your career there in whatever it was, as we get closer toward 2010...
30:11
where you were doing lots, and I think you felt like maybe you bit off more than you can chew at that stage.
30:17
Just reflect on that for me and what you mean by that.
30:20
Yeah, I definitely got burnt out.
30:23
So how it worked in the Red Bull program, you had no choice over what you were going to be racing.
30:28
So at the start of the year, you get a call from Helmut Marko.
30:31
He'd tell you, okay, call this number.
30:34
You're racing with...
30:36
This championship and X team.
30:38
And there was no real discussion.
30:40
They were making all the calls for your career, even to the point of where you'd be living.
30:45
At least that was the case for me.
30:48
And going into, so 2007,
30:56
I won the European Formula Renault Championship.
31:01
And the next year I went to Formula 3, British Formula 3, which went pretty well.
31:07
I had the most race wins, but also made some stupid mistakes, which meant I didn't win the championship.
31:12
I was P3 behind Jaime El-Baswari.
31:16
But going into the next season, I became the Formula 1 champion.
31:20
reserve driver.
31:21
So this was the year where I really got burnt out.
31:23
So I got into a situation, I was a Formula 1 reserve driver.
31:27
I raced the Formula 3 European Series.
31:31
And at very last minute notice, I also raced in the World Series by Renault Championship, which I'd done almost no testing for.
31:39
So not only was I competing in two championships, I was also the reserve driver for Formula 1 and going to all the Formula 1 races on top of simulator testing back at the factory.
31:48
And
31:49
Yeah, I got burnt out, honestly.
31:51
I went from racetrack to racetrack.
31:54
I had a few bad results, which, you know, you start to lose a bit of confidence.
31:58
You're jumping from between different cars.
31:59
I felt like a bit of a spare part at being a reserve driver.
32:04
It wasn't something that I particularly enjoyed, you know, going to the racetrack, listening on the meetings, but not really having a role.
32:10
You know, you didn't really have an input.
32:12
You were just there listening, right?
32:15
It sounds like I'm moaning, but yeah, the truth is I got burnt out.
32:19
And I wasn't really, it was a bit of a dark time in my career.
32:22
I didn't enjoy it.
32:24
I lost a bit of the love for motorsport in a way.
32:26
And I think the results reflected that.
32:30
And I think as a young, you know, 17, 18 year old, you know, I say I wasn't prepared for that, but you know, you look like Max Verstappen and he's gone there at that age and he was prepared for that, but I wasn't.
32:45
So yeah, I think I just got a bit burnt out, mate.
32:49
And a year and a half later, I lost my drive with Red Bull.
32:52
And I think for just reasons, the results weren't there.
32:55
I mean, I'm not going to sit there and say, yeah, they asked me to do too much or whatever it was.
32:59
And that's how it was.
33:01
But that was quite a turning point for me as well because all of a sudden I was put in a situation where –
33:07
I no longer was under the Red Bull umbrella where they were deciding, okay, you need to be there at this day.
33:12
You need to be with this team.
33:14
I was all of a sudden a bit more in control of my own destiny.
33:16
I've always had great support back in New Zealand from the likes of Peter Johnston, Barry Tomlinson, who have always been advisors, obviously the Gill Traps who have helped almost every single New Zealand driver I can think of.
33:27
So I've always had great support, but...
33:29
under that Red Bull umbrella, they were very much in control of every move in my career.
33:32
So all of a sudden I was in this situation where I was all of a sudden in control again.
33:39
And actually it was actually a big relief for me, which sounds weird, like losing that drive.
33:44
I remember it was at the 2010 Silverstone Grand Prix.
33:48
I had a meeting with Marko who told me that, yeah, I'd no longer be in the Red Bull program.
33:53
And it was actually a big release.
33:55
And I remember getting home that night and I was like, okay, well –
33:59
What now?
34:00
I was very much on the edge of coming home to New Zealand.
34:04
That wasn't in my head at the moment.
34:05
It was like, no, I'm not going home.
34:07
But obviously, I didn't have money to keep supporting myself to be in Europe.
34:11
But I still had this sense of relief and that I was now in control.
34:18
chatting to a lot of my advisors in New Zealand.
34:21
You know, one of the advice from Peter Johnson was like, okay, get a whiteboard and just start marking up all the contacts that you've made over the last four or five years in Europe.
34:29
And that's what I did.
34:30
And I started picking up the phone for the first time in my career.
34:33
That was never something I had to do before.
34:36
and just embrace it.
34:36
You know, I grafted, I got an odd drive here and there.
34:41
I picked up a role at the Mercedes Formula One team, so I became one of their test drivers, which I continued for three or four years.
34:46
So that became a big part of my, actually my income, you know, that's what supported me to live.
34:55
And my wife, Sarah, worked at a restaurant, so you know, we were scraping to get by, we didn't have any money.
35:02
I was grafting to just find those drives here and there, but it's hard to explain, but just being a bit more in control of my own career, it did change my outlook.
35:11
And I guess I realized very quickly that I 100% wanted to find a way to restore my career.
35:21
And I think the big turning point for me was going to endurance racing as well.
35:26
A year and a half later, I turned up to the official test for the LMP2, endurance racing at Paul Ricard.
35:35
I arrived with my helmet, some cash, so to speak, a bank account that I knew I had a couple of thousand euros in.
35:42
I walked up and down.
35:42
But unannounced, you rocked up and started knocking on garage doors.
35:48
What did you do?
35:49
Effectively, yeah.
35:50
So I was in touch with one team who would potentially put me in a car for a test.
35:54
So although I had a bit of a reputation in single-seaters, endurance is a whole new world.
35:58
You know, it's a different, yeah, almost a different sport in a way.
36:03
You know, you need to prove yourself again in endurance.
36:07
So I basically went up and down the pit lane, introduced myself to every single team owner.
36:11
But the one team that I had been in contact with before, I paid a small amount of money to do 30 laps in the car with one set of tyres, did a mega job.
36:20
And that turned into a race drive with another team that I met on the day.
36:24
It was a guy named Greg Murphy, believe it or not, an Irishman.
36:28
He met me on that day, saw what I did, and about a month later I did my very first endurance race.
36:33
And two months later my...
36:34
two or three months later, my very first LeMor 24-Hour.
36:37
That was a big turning point for me.
36:38
I fell in love with endurance racing, the team element, working with teammates for a common goal, sharing all that information, that camaraderie, the endurance side of it too.
36:48
I just, yeah, I found LeMor...
36:55
the most exhilarating thing I'd done, you know, standing on that pit lane, I had goosebumps, you know, the whole team had worked a whole year for this one 24 hour race.
37:02
And I just loved it, mate.
37:04
I'm not really putting it into words very well, but, um, that, that was a big turning point for me getting to endurance racing.
37:09
Um,
37:10
which then a few years later turned into a factory drive in Porsche.
37:15
But between that, I also ended up racing in America.
37:18
I met a contact from... At that time, I was racing LMP2 in Europe, just turning up for the test, which then also turned into a drive in Grand Am in America, which I started making some contacts in America.
37:32
I've done the Daytona 24 many times.
37:36
Yes, I really turned my career around and took a different direction.
37:41
But the crazy thing was, seven, eight years later, I actually ended up back in Formula One.
37:45
And I grew so much in that time of actually being in control of my own destiny and having to make those calls and Sarah becoming a bit...
37:55
bit more part of the team.
37:56
You know, Sarah moved over to live with me in Europe.
37:58
You know, we've been together a long time.
38:01
But, you know, during that time we became more of a team because we were all of a sudden working together.
38:04
You know, she's now in charge of logistics and she deals with sponsors or the team on different elements.
38:10
So, you know, we...
38:12
The whole, yeah, my whole life changed in that moment and in some ways for the better.
38:17
And I'm not saying, look, I'm happy Red Bull dropped me, but in some ways I probably needed that.
38:21
I needed a bit of a shift and I was just in a bit of a rut.
38:25
Yeah.
38:26
I probably haven't explained it very well, mate.
38:28
I disagree.
38:28
I think you have because you've given us a sense of finding the hunger again, which I like.
38:34
The fact that you didn't lose the love of motor racing, if anything, it started a new...
38:39
love affair in a different sense you clearly hadn't contemplated endurance racing and and you know you you would have known what lemar was about and things like that but it but it's it opened your eyes and you fell in love with it again which i think is terrific yeah and that's that's absolutely genuine and i get goosebumps even just thinking about lemar now and um it's
39:00
It's funny because I grew up dreaming Formula One, and I'm lucky enough that I've raced at Le Mans and I've raced in Formula One.
39:07
But still, for me, nothing compares to standing on that grid at Le Mans with the whole Grand Sands full.
39:13
I'll never forget my first time with Porsche, seeing the Porsche flags being waved and that feeling of representing the brand.
39:19
And that moment will never pass my memory.
39:22
And I didn't have that...
39:25
I mean, it was incredible to be a Formula 1 driver too, but that electric feeling and that atmosphere I never experienced in Formula 1, believe it or not, which is weird because that's what I grew up dreaming of.
39:36
And I still love my time in Formula 1.
39:38
I cherished it.
39:38
The Monaco Grand Prix driving a Formula 1 car around Monaco or my very first time in a Formula 1 race at Austin.
39:45
I mean, these sensations are also absolutely incredible, but just from a pure emotional point of view, I have this real love affair with the Le Mans 24-hour.
39:54
But that's not to take anything away from 4-1 because that's another story altogether, which was also incredible in so many elements of it.
40:00
I reckon you've balanced your answer very well there.
40:02
Most would respect that.
40:05
I was under the podium at Le Mans in 2015.
40:09
You were second that year with Mark Webber and Timo Bernhard.
40:14
You would go on to win that race.
40:16
But I want to just touch on a couple of things here because you've raised Porsche.
40:20
Firstly, that trio, that partnership, I mean...
40:24
You talk about team in motor racing, great team of drivers and an incredible team of people behind the scenes at Porsche.
40:31
And that was something really special, wasn't it?
40:34
Yeah, so becoming a factory Porsche driver, definitely, those first few years taught me a huge amount as well.
40:42
So dealing with such a professional company, such a big company, wearing that badge, you have some sense of responsibility, then also such a professional environment, you've got 100 engineers at the racetrack that you're...
40:56
learning how to deal with that because you have to put your feedback in the right structure to the right people.
41:03
There's a system in place.
41:05
And that's where Mark Webber definitely helps me a huge amount is just how to manage that team element, how to manage myself in such an environment.
41:15
But the team element in endurance is special, particularly with the drivers.
41:19
Like you say, with Mark and Timo, we became best friends.
41:22
We didn't really know each other very well before that.
41:24
But when you're sharing a race car week in, week out, and every waking moment together on those race weekends, and you're fighting for that common goal, win or lose, one makes a mistake, you've got the arm around, one guy's having a bad day, you're trying to figure out how to help them.
41:44
I'm struggling to explain as well, but I guess it's like anyone who's been in any form of team, you know, if it's a rugby team or if it's, you know, there's that team element that motorsport doesn't normally have.
41:54
So, you know, we're like brothers now, you know, we had that bond that we raced together and put our complete heart and soul in it for a year.
42:01
And that's something that I missed in motorsport before because in Formula One, you're very much an individual.
42:08
Yes, there's a huge team.
42:10
Like, it is very much a team sport, but...
42:14
it does feel more of an individual sport.
42:16
It's more about an individual driver where you've got three of you and you're working together.
42:20
It just adds this whole other element that I very much enjoy.
42:23
And, you know, I've been in many different trios of lineups or even sometimes four drivers at Daytona, and they're all different in their own way and they're all enjoyable and I've made, you know, some incredible friends.
42:36
And I think the other point as well is you've got this huge respect for each other.
42:42
getting to work with the likes of Mark and Timo, and that experience that I can draw on.
42:46
Normally, in Formula 1, let's say Mark was my teammate.
42:49
He's not going to share any of that insight or any of that expertise that he's learned over the year.
42:56
He's not going to help me out with that.
42:57
Yeah, exactly.
42:58
But where you're in this team together, and you've almost got the power of three, and it's...
43:05
It really put me on this very quick trajectory of learning and experience when you can actually call on those other guys for that information.
43:15
Definitely grew as a driver and a person through that very, in a very short time at my time with Porsche.
43:22
When you look back over Porsche, for 60 odd years or more, they've had some iconic, some unbelievable race cars.
43:33
And the car you competed in
43:36
919 or 919, it holds, it's now been retired, but it holds an unbelievable space in the history pages.
43:44
For you,
43:45
two World Endurance Championships, and a Le Mans 24-hour win.
43:51
I remember 2015 vividly and thinking to myself, these things are like real life scale electrics cars.
43:58
They're unbelievable.
44:00
Can you give us a sense of what they like to drive and the kind of test it must have on your gray matter, because there's so much going on with the systems in the cars and how to make the most of it.
44:15
Yeah, they are like little spaceships, as you say.
44:18
Very, very complicated.
44:20
But super cool, though.
44:22
I mean, awesome.
44:23
I mean...
44:25
Yeah, there's a lot to take in while you're driving.
44:27
So we're managing energy systems.
44:29
I mean, the incredibly complicated car, but also off the track, you know, relaying all that data back to the hundreds of engineers and developing that with them and tweaking and fine-tuning and getting the most out of it over the course of a weekend was all part of the fun.
44:42
Can you do that almost when you've got to make adjustments on the run?
44:46
Can you almost do that by Braille for one of a better description?
44:49
Like you're going down Mulsanne at whatever speed you're doing.
44:52
Can you do it without needing to look down and things like that?
44:55
Yeah, when you're used to a car.
44:56
I mean, we're doing 36-hour tests sometimes before Le Mans.
44:59
So you get very used to the environment you're in.
45:04
And, yeah, you know it like the back of your hand.
45:05
I mean, there's 100 switches on the thing.
45:07
But, of course, you know – it's like anyone who's –
45:12
play to PlayStation or tapped on a keyboard.
45:14
That's a good example.
45:15
People can ride on a keyboard without looking at it.
45:17
It's the same thing in the end.
45:18
It becomes an extension of your body, which is very much the case in a race car.
45:23
That feeling that you have in a race car and feeling on the edge of the limit, you feel it through your body.
45:27
So the whole thing becomes an extension.
45:29
That's the same for the
45:31
for the buttons and all the systems.
45:32
But yeah, no, the car definitely goes down in the history books and it's cool that my name's written in there as well as a Lamar winner.
45:40
And together with Earl Bamber, another Kiwi who I grew up with, was another pretty incredible story in my career, actually.
45:47
To end up standing on the top step of the Lamar podium
45:50
with another Kiwi driver that I grew up racing go-karts with.
45:54
I grew up spending time on his family's farm as a kid.
46:00
And we had very different career paths, but we ended up back in exactly the same place, you know, 20 years later, which was pretty unreal, to be honest, yeah.
46:10
summed up before the atmosphere of the event.
46:12
I mean, it's, what are we talking, 200,000-odd people at Le Mans.
46:16
Immense passion, immense history at that event.
46:20
And it's gruelling, just as a spectator, to try and stay awake for 24 hours is tough, let alone for you all competing in it.
46:28
It's, you know, in the trio, you know, Monaco Grand Prix, Le Mans 24-hour, Indianapolis 500.
46:34
It's a very special race to win, Brendan, isn't it?
46:38
Yeah, you're right.
46:39
And obviously I competed at the Monaco Grand Prix as well.
46:43
And yeah, there's obviously a couple of drivers going after the Triple Crown.
46:47
I think Montoya has won Indy and Monaco, and Fernando has now won Le Mans and Monaco.
46:55
I think there's a couple of people in history to win all three.
46:57
Very few.
46:57
Very few.
46:59
Yeah.
47:00
Yes.
47:00
They're very lucky to have competed in two of them.
47:02
But as I said before, Le Mans definitely holds a special place.
47:07
Yeah.
47:07
I'm just thinking about it now.
47:08
I mean, the virtual one's going to be cool tomorrow, but I really hope we get back there in the end of the day.
47:17
That's the end of part one of my chat with Kiwi racer Brendan Hartley.
47:21
Make sure you head back to the library and check out the second instalment.
47:25
Part two has a few gems, including his where to now moment when Porsche called time on its LMP1 or prototype sports car program, how he landed the drive with Toro Rosso in F1, and he sheds a little more light on a drive in America that could have seen his career take a very different turn.
47:54
Listener.