Motorsport: Forget last year Brendon's back on the grid

In 2011 Brendon Hartley can concentrate on his Renault campaign. Photo / Supplied

Brendon Hartley is on the comeback trail after a 2010 season that has been consigned to that box labelled "Experience".

The 21-year-old from Palmy learned a lot during his time with the Red Bull outfit. Don't forget: while he never rolled on to the grid for an F1 start, he was confirmed as both the Red Bull and Toro Rosso Formula One teams' reserve driver.

This year Hartley doesn't have three things on his mind - leaning on the pit wall, racing in Formula Renault 3, the F3 Euroseries and the odd GP2 race as well as heaps of F1 simulator testing.

In 2011 he'll be concentrating on his World Series by Renault 3.5-litre campaign with Gravity-Charouz Racing.

Hartley was quick in pre-season practice, consistently inside the top 10, and was looking forward to the opening round of the championship at Motorland, in Aragon, Spain, two weeks ago. Things didn't quite go according to plan. He qualified well for both races but errors and an unlucky coming together with another car put paid to his weekend.

However, he can make amends this weekend when round two fires into action at the famous Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium.

"Not the start to the season I was looking for and it was pretty disappointing, but there were a few positives to come out of it," said Hartley.

"Starting in the top 10 in both races I should have converted that to points [21st and a DNF]. The first race I made the mistake and in the second race I got squeezed and my front wheel got touched, which bent a tie rod.

"It's a long championship so I'm not going to dwell on that result too long."

In some cases drivers and teams drop their collective heads when things don't go right and a weekend's racing ends in disappointment.

A sign of a truly professional team is when they can put a bad weekend behind them and take the positives away.

"We learned a lot the first weekend and sometimes that is better than testing as racing is completely different," said Hartley.

"The team is very professional and although we thought we'd be on the pace straight away, we've learned our lesson and I am sure we will be able to take everything we've learned to Spa.

"I'm sure we're going to be there [up at the front] at Spa. Like I said, I'm not worrying about it [last race] as it's a long championship and I can't really afford to."

He'll be joined on the grid by fellow New Zealanders Chris van der Drift and Dominic Story.

It's been a long time since we've had two Kiwis, let alone three, wheel to wheel in the same high-level European championship.

After one round Van der Drift has the bragging rights, having finished eighth and 13th in the opening round to sit 12th on the table.

European tour

2011 World Series by Renault/Formula Renault 3.5 schedule:

April 17
Motorland Aragon, Spain

May 1
Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium

May 15
Monza, Italy

May 29
Monte Carlo, Monaco

June 16
Nürburgring, Germany

July 3
Hungaroring, Hungary

August 21
Silverstone Great, Britain

September 18
Le Castellet, France

October 9
Barcelona, Spain