Brendon Hartley: Kiwi Driver for Toyota Gazoo Racing on the Le Mans 24 hour endurance race

New Zealand motor racing driver Brendon Hartley is stunned by the quality of competition heading into this weekend's Le Mans 24-hour endurance race. 

The prestigious race has been operating since 1928 and the winner is the car that travels the greatest distance in a 24-hour period around the 13.6km circuit. 

The biggest names in vehicle manufacturing are taking part —with Genesis, Ford and McLaren joining the party next year— and Hartley says the level of driver is insane. 

He told Mike Hosking every single driver in their category are paid professionals and top class drivers. 

“I would argue there’s... you can’t find a race anywhere in the world where you have so many of the world’s top drivers all in one place at the same time.”  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
One of the world's great motor races plays out this weekend.
Lemon at the point of the end has never looked
more competitive. Brendan Hartley he's one of of course three times,
once with Porsche, twice now with his current team Tour
de Gazu Racing. Anyway, it's been a big build up
and Brendan Hartley is with us from lamon morning. Good morning,
I've been watching the build up so far this week.
It looks sunny and warm and exciting. Are you enjoying it?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, so far, so good. It has been warm. There
was a bit of a funders on this mort this morning,
and you can never count out of it rain here.
I think every year of coming here for the last
felve years, there's been rain at some point. But yeah,
we're in good shape. I've got hyper Pole coming up,
which is the session that will set the field for
the race. We're not that confident that we're going to

(00:47):
be fighting for poposition. I think we're focused on our
race car. I think others have a car that can
unlock more potential in one lap, But on long run
pace we've looked competitive. We're in the next We've topped
a few of the sessions. So yeah, there's a big
twenty four hour race ahead to try and get through
and execute, to try and stand on that top step.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
What is the value of preparation? How much time in
the car do you actually get and the weather conditions,
in other words, preparing for every eventuality or because of
what the races you can't.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
I mean a lot of the preparation has gone on
over the last twelve months, more less since the race
had finished last year. So we do simulator sessions, we
do thirty six hour test sessions. We basically test the
car for thirty six hours straight. Yeah, so we come
here pretty prepared. We're all experienced drivers, incredibly experienced team,
arguably the most experienced drivers and team. So yeah, a

(01:44):
lot of that prep's done. And then as of the
race week, we started testing already on Sunday. Let's say
there's more or less five to six hours of testing
over three three days, and that's split pretty equally between
the drivers. So yeah, we're all pretty prepared going in,
but so all the other teams.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
How do you balance that up? That's such an interesting point.
See I'm looking at some of the names from Jensen,
Button and Schumacher, and magnuson. You know some people with
some seriously if one experience, for example, is are you
better prepared because you do this all the time as
opposed to some of these drivers who come in periodically.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
None of the drivers you mentioned coming periodically, so they're
all full season drivers, so that I think there's maybe
only one I fell in the field that that might
be here only for this race. So the whole grids,
other than a couple of cars which are the American Championship,
under the same rule set, they are all full time drivers.
They're all every single driver in the field in our category.

(02:44):
So there's twenty one cars in the hypercar category. They're
all paid professionals, top class drivers. And I would argue
there's you can't find a race and anywhere in the
world where you have so many of the world stop
drivers all in one place. That's exactly.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Does the if one thing make any difference? If you've
been an F one, does that does that qualify you
better than any other form of racing or not?

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Really? It definitely helps in general, if you've if you've
derived from the if you've arrived in form of the
one that normally for good reason that you've you've proved
yourself in junior formulas and you've you've earned the credibility
to take one of those twenty seats. So generally speaking, yes,
but it is, it is. It is a different form

(03:29):
of motorsport that requires a different type of mentality and experience.
But that being said, to drive the cars as quickly
as possible around the track at your set required the same.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
At your level in your cars. What's happened to explain
to people who aren't official artist, what's happened in the
last few years. I mean the field is stacked now
with manufacturers that your your category seems to have taken off.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, it's it's unreal. So you know, five six years
ago you could argue that there was even less than
five six years you could argue that we're more or
less racing ourselves. But during that time we were still
pushing and preparing, knowing that this this wave of competition
was coming. And now it's it's a true golden era
of endurance racing. There's always been an incredible competition at

(04:13):
the front, but there's never been the depth that there
is now. When you've got you know, the likes of
Ferrari Porsche, Aston, Mard and Persia Cadillac helping. I'm sure
I've missed some. And on top we've got Genesis McLaren
Ford coming over the next two years, so it's it's stacked.
They're all professional teams manufacturers. There's also privateer teams that

(04:37):
take on some of the manufacturers cars as well, So yeah,
it's incredibly competitive. I think your question was actually how
and why there's been a rule set change. It's made
it more affordable, it's made it more interesting, an interesting
platform for manufacturers to develop their road car technologies, and
we're just, you know, expose their brand and racing and

(04:58):
there's there's no bigger and Lamar. Arguably you could say,
you know eighty five hundred and Lamar. Maybe you know
some of the Formula One races as well, but Lamar
is it's a special event and all the manufacturers want
to be here.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Bamber Dixon and you you've got any time for the
New Zealand side of the equation or do you all
stick in your own garage and own caravans.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
I'm just I'm just questioning if Scott's here, I haven't
seen him, but you might was he might maybe I'm
just thinking about it. I haven't seen him if he
was in the toon and when I raced against him.
But look, we were all friendly. I see it all
quite a bit. He's in the Cadillac. There used to
be more New Zealand drivers. It depends on the year,

(05:40):
you know, there's there's a few that come in and
out of endurance racing. But yeah, we're all definitely friendly.
We all know that we're finding the flag and we
all get.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
On fantastic And what's what's your vibe given you've done it,
given you've won it, do you can you can you
get a feel for where you're at this year or
it'll just unfold.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
That's that's the big question. And everyone keeps asking and
a lot of people ask about expectation that you can't
really ever expect anything. We've got a goal. We want
to win, that's that's no question on that. We we
missed out the last two years. We're fighting for victory
up until last hours where it's slipped away. That that
that that pain runs steep and everyone's very fired up

(06:23):
to go for victory. Not going to be easy. It's
a very tight field. We believe Ferrari might have a
slight advantage advantage, which is annoying. They've won the last
two years. Right behind them, it's pretty much everyone in
a tight pack. I think our teams are best at
executing races, and I'm lucky to have two incredible teammates,
so I'm positive we have a really good chance to

(06:46):
take victory. But there's a lot of things that we
have to do before we can even think about that.
That top step.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
All right, mate, we'll go well, we'll be watching how
good to catch up to Brendan Hartley, who's with the
toy De Gazu Racing team and of course three time
winner of Lemon this weekend and on the motor racing
front if one in Canada this weekend as well.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
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