F1 2018: Top 5 Worst Driver Performances

#2 Brendon Hartley

Brendon Hartley was under pressure for most of the season and it showed.

Brendon Hartley was brought in as an experienced replacement for the struggling Daniil Kvyat at Toro Rosso towards the end of 2017 and now the Russian is going to replace the Kiwi for the 2019 season, what a funny world the Formula 1 driver market is. How did this farcical situation arise in the first place?

Hartley had a mixed start to his time in F1, failing to score a point in his four 2017 races due to mechanical failures and the Toro Rosso's poor pace. Expectations for the New Zealander in his first full season weren't particularly high, but a solid if not unspectacular campaign was the minimum we envisaged.

However, partly due to Pierre Gasly's flashes of brilliance, he was thoroughly outshone by his younger teammate. The only points he scored were down to that crazy race in Baku, due to a double disqualification in the USA and the only ones on pure merit were earned in tricky conditions at the Hockenheimring.

It's not as though he didn't suffer from poor reliability, retiring 4 times due to mechanical failures, but he also got himself caught in 3 incidents that potentially cost him top 10 finishes.

You simply can't make mistakes like that when you're in the midfield melee. There really isn't much else to write home about for Hartley, he'll probably go back to WEC and enjoy more success there, it's very hard to see a team plucking for the 29-year-old unless it's a last-minute replacement.