Brendon Hartley, originally uploaded by Paul...Gibson

Kiwibloke’s first love has always been cars, the faster the better. In Kiwibloke’s mis-spent youth he owned two Alfa Romeo club cars, a 33QV and a Sprint QV. He was spectacularly unsuccessful emulating the success of former kiwi Formula 1 stars including Denny Hulme, Chris Amon, and Bruce Maclaren among others, and now runs a software company instead.
Creating a successful racing car career requires raw talent and kiwi Brendon Hartley has the goods. It is this talent that has lead him to a back up seat in Formula 1.  In February 2008, Kiwi Brendon (on these pages he gets the honorific “Kiwi”) got his first taste of Formula One. He was invited to perform a show run for Red Bull Racing in Riyadh. From here he performed the initial 3 day shake down test for Scuderia Toro Rosso. For the 2009 season, Hartley was appointed as official reserve driver for both the Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso teams. He is the first New Zealander to achieve F1 driver status since Mike Thackwell in 1984.

Brendon’s race schedule will see him back in the World Series Renault 3.5 category for his debut tearing up the streets of millionare billionare enclave Monaco this weekend. The 19-year-old kiwi will race a Red Bull Dallara chassis in a 25-lap, non-championship sprint race on Sunday morning, just before the Monaco Grand Prix. Hartley is entered by the French Tech 1 team, running alongside Charles Pic who was the fastest qualifier and race winner in the 3.5 Renault race in the Principality (Prince Albert is a huge racing fan) last season.  The Monaco Grand Prix has been held every year since 1929.

As a note kiwi driver Matt Halliday qualified fastest in the inaugural Renault 3.5 race at Monaco in 2003. Matt drove a superb race and held the lead for all of 21 laps of the 22 lap race. His gearbox imploded on the last lap and ended up coasting to a second place finish. Halliday will compete at Monaco this weekend in the Porsche Super Cup race.

“I want to win races for my country – but most of all I want to win for myself and the people who have believed in me from the very beginning.” – Kiwi Brendon

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvxzYDGIMh4

Jason Kerrison from the Kiwi band Opshop was the guest drive of New Zealand’s next motoracing hope Brendon Hartley during the A1GP in Taupo over the weekend.

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The hand built Hulme Canam car was driven last weekend at the Taupo A1GP event. Named after Kiwi Formula One driver Denny Hulme, the Hulme CanAm is scheduled for limited production build in 2010, with a provisional price of Euro 295,000. The development of further model derivatives is planned, including a Coupe version.

Designed and hand-built by the Hulme technology team in New Zealand – including members responsible for the nation’s America’s Cup triumph – in co-operation with Massey University, the road-legal CanAm features an ultra-lightweight carbon composite tub and bodywork and race-orientated chassis, suspension and braking, and is powered by a hand-built 7-litre (427cu.in) Chevrolet V8 developing 600bhp and 600Nm torque, fed through a close-ratio, six-speed CIMA gearbox.

Chris Amon drove the orange-and-black Hulme CanAm roadster on the Taupo racetrack 24 hours ago, during a break in the A1GP schedule.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A3kJmarUA0

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzdjwUfrTGs

Things turned ugly for Black Beauty at Taupo this afternoon, with New Zealand driver Chris van der Drift failing to recover from a nightmare first lap in the A1GP feature race. Switzerland’s Neel Jani won the race, after a pitlane error let him past series leader and sprint race winner Adam Carroll of Ireland. Portugal’s Felipe Albuquerque was third, followed by Australian John Martin. Ireland holds its series lead, now followed by Switzerland. New Zealand has dropped one place to sixth.

The top three on the grid for this afternoon was a carbon copy of this morning’s sprint race, with Ireland, the Netherlands and Portugal up front.

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