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Brendon Hartley is confident of being fit for pre-season testing with Toyota in early January despite breaking a foot that forced him to miss the FIA prize-giving ceremony in Baku.
New Zealander Hartley, along with crew-mates Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa, clinched a second successive WEC title this year, beating the second Toyota squad of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez in the new Hypercar class.
For Hartley, in particular, it was his fourth individual crown after previously triumphing with Porsche in 2015 and 2017 in the LMP1 category.
But in preparation for the new season, Hartley has suffered a setback which resulted in him joining the gala event on Friday via video link from his apartment in Monaco, whilst Buemi and Hirakawa were attired in dress suits.
“I had a bit of an accident last week and broke a bone in my foot,” confirmed Hartley.
“I’m currently doing my best to recover as quickly as possible, but it’s going to be fine for the first test, which is around the 10th of January.
“I’m pretty confident I’m going to be fine. I’m just doing everything I can to try and recover as quickly as possible.”
Reflecting on his latest title triumph, with victories in the 6 Hours of Portimao and season-ending 8 Hours of Bahrain, Hartley was naturally delighted but could not help but reflect on the way that got away after finishing second to Ferrari at Le Mans.
“It means a lot, and the second one with Ryo, he’s grown as our team-mate, and we’re a really tight crew now,” assessed Hartley.
“We get on well, we have good laughs but we’re also realistic about doing the job on track, and I think we’ve made a strong team.
“At the start of the year, everyone knew it would be a tough challenge, and we came out on top. It was almost a perfect season from the team’s point of view, and car seven (the second Toyota) pushed us all the way.
“But Le Mans is the one race that’s a bit of a bitter pill to swallow, that Ferrari took it off us. We threw everything at them. They took the win, but we’re going to be coming back stronger next year to try and take that Le Mans victory.
“But the world championship felt amazing, to get that second one as a driver crew, and a fourth one for me and Seb.
“Not too many lows, we had a couple of tough races, but the consistency is what got us the championship in the end.”
Defending the crown again is set to be a tougher task next year given the influx of new manufacturers to Hypercar, including Lamborghini, BMW, Alpine, and Isotta Fraschini, for a total of 19 entries.
Looking ahead to the new campaign, Hartley said: “It’s so exciting.
“I just saw the results from the testing over in Daytona the last days, with the Lamborghini rolled out for the first time in front of everybody, and they looked pretty quick straightaway.
“There’s also BMW coming as well, and others. It’s hard to believe there are 19 cars for the whole championship – it’s a big number.
“I never dreamed that we would see that when I started in LMP1 in 2014. I never thought we’d see a grid like that.”
