Hartley doing everything he can to stay at Toro Rosso

Brendon Hartley admits that he's "doing everything he can" in order to stay with his Toro Rosso team for the 2019 season.

Toro Rosso driver Brendon Hartley has had a disappointing season so far, with only pointless Sergey Sirotkin keeping the Kiwi from being at the bottom of the drivers' standings.

Hartley is being completely outshadowed by his team-mate Pierre Gasly - with the Frenchman now being rumoured to make the step up to Red Bull, following Daniel Ricciardo's announcement that he will be joining Renault next season.

There has been some bad luck for Hartley as well, with more DNFs than any driver at this stage of the season.

His poor start to the season has undoubtedly put his place in Formula One under threat, but the Toro Rosso man is trying to remain positive.

"I feel in a good place mentally," Hartley told PlanetF1.

"Even after the rumours and a bit of pressure early on (it) makes me feel a lot stronger coming out the side of that. I see things a lot clearer. A lot learned.

"There were some tough times in the beginning where I made a couple of mistakes, where I had opportunities to capitalise.

"But I feel in the last four or five races feel live I've been on top of things and don't have the points to show from it."