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Hartley and Gasly hope past successes will yield Bahrain boost

Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gasly are both hoping to gain an advantage in this weekend's Grand Prix due to their previous knowledge of the circuit.

Hartley is yet to finish in the top ten in five races for Toro Rosso. He was a lap off the leaders in Melbourne, having not raced at the Albert Park Circuit before.

But Bahrain is a different matter. The circuit is a familiar venue to him from racing in the FIA World Enduracen Championship. The New Zealander says he's hoping this will help him get into the points on Sunday.

"Bahrain is a track I have some nice memories from," he said. "It was where we clinched our first world title back in 2015 with Mark Webber and Timo Bernhard in the Porsche LMP1 team

"I'm really happy to go back there," he added. " I wouldn't say it's my strongest track on the calendar, but it's one that I know very well.

"We didn't score points in Melbourne," he admitted. "But there were plenty of positives from the weekend

"I believe Bahrain should be a better track for us. My goal for this weekend stays the same: to score my first points in Formula 1."

Hartley seeking long-term lease with Formula 1

Hartley's team mate Gasly is also yet to score any championship points. He has one more race under his belt than the Kiwi, but his Australian Grand Prix was prematurely halted with a power unit failure on lap 13.

Like Hartley, Gasly is similarly hoping to make the most of prior experience racing in Sakhir.

"What comes to my mind when I think about Bahrain is pole position in 2015," he explained. "I was on pole in the GP2 race the second time we went there.

"It's the first time I'm going to race there with a Formula 1 car this year," he said. "[But] it's a track I quite like."

The desert heat means that the Bahrain Grand Prix is held under floodlights after sunset. Gasly said that he was looking was forward to the different challenge.

"It's usually pretty hot there, but Formula 1 races during the night.

"[That] will be something new to me, so we will see. It's not my favourite track but it's quite a cool one!"

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.