Hartley relives terrifying Silverstone crash

Brendon Hartley relived the terrifying nature of his heart-stopping crash in third practice for the British Grand Prix, revealing he had no warning that he was on the brink of a catastrophic suspension failure before his front-left shattered, sending him spinning off the track and slamming into barriers at Silverstone.

The Toro Rosso driver had to miss qualifying due to the damage sustained in the scary crash, although he was thankfully able to walk away unscathed.

Pierre Gasly's running was also limited, and the FIA ruled that he could not qualify unless his entire suspension package was changed, but Hartley hopes their races will not be compromised on Sunday.

"It was very instantaneous, there was no warning. I didn't hit any kerbs and there were no vibrations beforehand," Hartley explained.

VIDEO: Hartley's huge FP3 crash

"The moment that I hit the brake pedal, which is probably some of the highest forces that the suspension sees, something at that very moment broke. Obviously I tried to fight the car, and slow it down as much as I could, but I still hit the wall pretty hard.

"[Toro Rosso] are taking it very seriously, and they're looking into what happened. I put my trust in the people in the team to make sure that it will be OK for tomorrow."

Saturday's incident was not the first crash of Hartley's season. He was also involved in a heavy shunt at the Spanish Grand Prix, the force of which broke his car in half and again forced him to miss qualifying.

"I'm not really a believer in luck or superstition," Hartley said. "We've had a series of unfortunate events, not all of them being my fault. This was obviously out of my control. It's frustrating.

"I've had a few of the biggest [crashes] of my life this year. After the third one I said that surely that has to be the last. There's been a few absolutely out of my control. Obviously Montreal, Monaco, here, not much I could do really. I had a failure in Austria as well which ended my race.

"If it's luck, sure, I've had some unfortunate events happen. It hasn't broken my spirit. I'll remain focused and optimistic."