Pedro de la Rosa has defended the viability of struggling HRT, despite its new owners trying to build up a formula one team in the mist of a near-unprecedented economic crisis.
The unemployment rate in Spain has spiralled past 20 per cent, and yet owners Thesan have taken on the task of rebuilding the former Hispania team following the departure of boss Colin Kolles and all the infrastructure.

The F112, bearing more than a striking resemblance to the Dallara-designed 2010 and 2011 car, was launched recently with a new livery but only two visible sponsors.

Asked whether it is a good time to push ahead in Spain with a formula one project, lead driver de la Rosa said: “Any moment can be good.

“There is a large labour force in Spain, highly educated and motivated people, young people pushing hard and experienced people.”

But in formula one, money is the fuel and it’s difficult to come by at present.

“This is a time of crisis,” de la Rosa acknowledged to DPA news agency, “and also it has been noticed in formula one and budgets have gone down.”

He admitted, however, that HRT will have to attract more backing in order to survive.

“If the (financial) injection does not come, it is going to be difficult,” said the 41-year-old. “We need sponsors, investors who believe in the project, to help us to grow.

“It’s obvious, we need it, but first we need to build a foundation so it can be seen that it is profitable to invest in our team,” he added.

After the team’s new car sat out the entire pre-season test period, owner Jose Ramon Carabante insists there is no risk that HRT will also miss the 2011 season opener in less than two weeks.

“It is certain that we will be in Australia and race there,” Carabante is quoted as saying by El Pais newspaper.

The F111 was finally launched in the Barcelona pitlane late last week but the team said it could not be tested due to components being held up in customs.

Carabante admits that Hispania’s preparation for its second formula one season was not ideal.

“Maybe we will not finish the first race, we’ll see, but the car will develop from here with the clear aim of fighting with and beating the other two teams that started last year,” he added, referring to Virgin and Lotus.

HRT has said the F111 is entirely new, but expert observers pointed out striking similarities with the back-of-the-grid Dallara car of 2010.

“We are relying on last year’s chassis,” admitted chief engineer Toni Cuquerella, “but 95 per cent of the car is new.

“We have a Cosworth engine with the latest specification and we have adapted the chassis for the new gearbox and hydraulics supplied to us by Williams.

“The collaboration with them (Williams) has allowed us to make a technological step of three years. It is clear that the car is much better than last year’s,” he added.

El Pais said HRT’s 2011 budget is EUR 45 million, to potentially be covered by some as yet unsigned sponsors.

“We are negotiating with several sponsors,” insists Carabante, who is reportedly willing to make up the shortfall if the budget is not finally completed.

HRT on Tuesday revealed the first computer-generated photos of its new car and livery for the 2011 season.
The F111 looks similar to the Dallara-built chassis of last season, but the Spanish team said it has been designed by Geoff Willis and Paul White.

“We are very pleased to introduce the first spec of the F111,” said team owner Jose Ramon Carabante. “This is only a first step as we are planning several updates during the season.”

Added team boss Colin Kolles: “We have made a big improvement for our second season and what you see confirms our commitment to F1.”

The new Daniel Simon-designed livery is also apparently only a first specification, given that the only on-car sponsor is Tata and several spaces include logos such as ‘This could be you’.

Hispania Racing is shaping up the F111, the new Spanish Team´s car, which will be hitting the tracks of the 2011 F1 season.

Hispania Racing is pleased to show the pictures of the new car developed by its own group of engineers and designers under the technical leadership of Geoff Willis and Chief Designer Paul White.

Jose Ramon Carabante, Hispania Racing President, stated: “We feel really proud of the car our drivers will run this forthcoming season. Despite a challenging first year, we managed to finish on the eleventh position in the World Constructors Championship. Now, we are very pleased to introduce the first spec of the F111, which means a huge design-effort from our side. This is only a first step as we are planning several updates during the season.”

Colin Kolles, Team Principal of Hispania Racing, “The F111 represents a significant step forward for Hispania Racing. We have made a big improvement for starting our second season in Formula 1 and what you see in our new car confirms Hispania Racing´s commitment to F1.” Colin Kolles also reveals that “the F111 will incorporate the adjustable rear wing.”

Daniel Simon who was responsible for the livery of the car, has perfectly expressed the combination of his personal ideas and those of Hispania Racing.

Colin Kolles: “Daniel has created a wonderfully confident look for our new car which really captures the effort the whole team has put into developing the F111. The car design and the graphic design perfectly complement one another and mark the real beginnings of our ambitions.”

Daniel is today one of the most imaginative and adventurous designers in both Hollywood and the motor industry. Although he and his label Cosmic Motor live mostly in the future, he also has a strong passion for motor racings bold iconic liveries from the past, and he has drawn inspiration of them in creating Hispania Racing´s new livery. “I miss fearless visual statements and large beautiful numbers on today´s racing cars.”

That distinct Cosmic Motors look brings together racing spirit and commercial reality, blending the dual requirements in a seamless, but attractive manner, which reflects the motivated vibe of the Hispania Racing team as it enters its second Formula 1 season.

Working within the defined Hispania Racing shape was enjoyable for Daniel, “Playing with the restrictions of what you can do to a complex F1 body is fun. There are many don´ts, but I found a way to lay courageous racing essence on the car.”

Narain Karthikeyan has confirmed reports that HRT will not race an entirely new car in 2011.
The struggling Spanish team with its car designer Dallara in 2010, and a new partnership for this year with Toyota Motorsport GmbH also foundered.

It recently emerged that HRT would begin pre-season testing at Valencia next month with the 2010 car, but a report by the Indian news agency PTI claimed that an “upgraded version” of the F110 will in fact contest the 2011 season.

“They (HRT) will participate with an upgraded version of their 2010 chassis, mated to the Cosworth engine, and a gearbox sourced from the Williams team,” 2011 driver Karthikeyan is quoted on Tuesday by sport360.com.

HRT is expected to confirm officially on Friday that Narain Karthikeyan has secured one of the Spanish team’s race seats for 2011.
“I am sure that his experience and speed will be very useful for the team during the season,” team boss Colin Kolles said.

The news comes after the Indian driver, who made his F1 debut in 2005 with Jordan, announced on Twitter that he has been signed thanks to the support of his sponsors.

It emerged late last year that Karthikeyan, turning 34 next week, had up to $8 million to spend on a seat, including the backing of Mumbai-based carmaker Tata who are thought keen to associate with the inaugural Indian grand prix in October.

“Huge thanks to my long time supporters (the) Tata Group. Their support has been instrumental,” he tweeted on Thursday.

After his Jordan debut, Karthikeyan spent some time as Williams’ test driver but more recently has been racing in the Superleague and NASCAR Truck series.

It was rumoured that he had split unpleasantly with Kolles in late 2005, but insists that he has an “excellent working relationship” with the now HRT chief.

“I have always maintained that I have not given up on my desire to return to the top level of motor sport,” Karthikeyan is quoted by Indian media.

The Delhi-based Hindustan Times newspaper revealed that Karthikeyan chose F1 over NASCAR for 2011 even though he “won’t be making any money” personally this year.

“It was a tough call,” he confirmed, “but one I had no qualms making.”

Karthikeyan was asked about the likely competitiveness of HRT’s 2011 car, after the Dallara-built single seater this year proved the slowest in the field.

“The car can’t be any worse than it was last year,” he said. “Ideally we would like to move ahead of the other two new teams Lotus and Virgin.”

HRT owner Jose Ramon Carabante is expecting the Spanish team to have a better season in 2011.

The Dallara-built F110 was the slowest car in formula one this year, but Hispania has inked an agreement to have its next car equipped with a Williams gearbox.

However, an agreement with 2011 car supplier Toyota recently fell through, raising doubts about the likely competitiveness of the team next season.

But Carabante told Radio Marca in Spanish that it is Geoff Willis who has designed the 2011 HRT “and the car he has designed will give us many joys”.

“The car is being made partly in Germany and partly in England and it will be ready.

“We have been working on it for some time and it will be in Bahrain for sure. This year was much more difficult. This time we will be in the winter tests,” added Carabante.

He said HRT’s plans for its 2011 car are similar to Force India and Toro Rosso’s; teams who “work with several suppliers”.

A problem with the Toyota plan, he revealed, was that the Cosworth engine did not work with the Toyota chassis, which has its own power plant.

“The Cosworth did not fit in the Toyota and we couldn’t break the agreement with Cosworth because the clause was that they had to have been one of the least reliable, and they were not,” he explained.

On the financial front, Carabante said many sponsors do not appreciate the full value of formula one.

“In F1 these days there is no need to spend 5 or 10 million,” he said. “You can come in with 1 million or 500,000 euros.”

He lamented that “You go to large companies in this country and tell them that with their support you can have the car of Toyota, the use of their facilities and be in the top eight from time to time but they don’t support you.

“We have a Spanish team which would be even more Spanish with a driver like Pedro de la Rosa, but the companies did not come in.”

But he revealed that “soon we will announce a major sponsor because negotiations are well advanced. It is one of the five most important companies in Spain,” said Carabante.

HRT’s aim for 2011 is “to consolidate and be a step further ahead than this year. It is a long term project and we will see if in two or three years we are established, as was the initial idea”.

On the driver front, Carabante said talks are ongoing with “five or six” candidates but said announcements are not scheduled until the new year.

Whether a Spaniard is among them, he answered: “Maybe.”

A motor racing company based in England has emerged as a possible solution to HRT’s car predicament for 2011.

With the Spanish team having split with both its 2010 and 2011 car suppliers Dallara and Toyota, Hispania is facing the prospect of trying to beat the new 107 per cent qualifying rule with the uncompetitive F110 chassis.

But according to Spanish website f1aldia.com, Formtech Composites could be the UK based company that HRT has fallen back on with less than 90 days to go until Bahrain.

HRT team owner Jose Ramon Carabante said this week that the 2011 car is being built “in Germany and in England”.

Oxfordshire based Formtech is headed by Mark Preston, who after serving as Super Aguri’s technical boss acquired the assets of the failed team along with German investors.

The company supplies composites to F1 teams including Renault, Lotus and Toro Rosso, but has also built and run a F1 chassis to current specifications based on the 2006 Super Aguri.

Preston said: “Formtech … would fit perfectly with Hispania to provide the resources they might need.”

With time rapidly running out for HRT ahead of the 2011 season, the Australian added: “If we were able to launch Super Aguri in just 100 days, then almost anything is possible.”

Formtech also owns the intellectual property of the defunct Arrows team and confirmed that it could “quickly design and manufacture bespoke solutions in both prototyping and short run production on site”.

Karun Chandhok will test the 2011 GP2 car this week in France.

The Indian driver has been asked by his old team ORT to give the new car its maiden test in Paul Ricard beginning on Thursday.

“I really hope my experience in formula one and in GP2 will be helpful to the team,” he said.

“My goal for 2011 is to remain in formula one, but for the time being it’s good to have the opportunity of knowing the new GP2 car,” said Chandhok, 26.

The new GP2 car has been designed by Dallara, who also penned the Hispania that Chandhok raced early in 2010.

Chandhok wrote on Twitter that the Paul Ricard test is a “good chance to try (the) Pirelli tyres and knock the rust off!”

HRT has reportedly bought Japanese carmaker Toyota’s former formula one team.

The new Spanish team has struggled with its Dallara-built car and a lack of development in 2010.

It was initially believed that Hispania Racing, bought by Jose Ramon Carabante from Adrian Campos before the start of its debut season, had agreed a deal to base its 2011 car on the unraced Toyota TF110.

It is for this reason, according to paddock speculation, that Toyota Motorsport only made available its 2009 car for Pirelli’s tyre testing programme.

It has been subsequently reported that HRT could buy hydraulic systems and gearboxes from the British team Williams for 2010.

But Auto Motor und Sport, citing “reliable sources”, reports that HRT has bought “the expertise, equipment and facilities” of Toyota’s Cologne based team.

At the same time, the magazine notes rumours that Hispania is behind in its payments to engine supplier Cosworth.

Singapore was a “one-off” stint at the wheel of team regular Sakon Yamamoto’s car, HRT reserve driver Christian Klien said after Sunday’s night race.

Despite the struggling Spanish team saying Yamamoto was sidelined due to food poisoning, Klien’s graduation to the race seat coincided with the arrival of the logo of a new Austrian sponsor on the Cosworth-powered car.

Paddock sources also said one of Yamamoto’s personal sponsors was removed from the car in Singapore.

So just as Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna have also been sidelined by HRT earlier in 2010, paddock cynics now expect the Japanese to have to make way for the better-funded Klien.

The 27-year-old former Jaguar and Red Bull driver also performed well in Singapore, considerably outqualifying teammate Senna before retiring from the race with an hydraulic problem whilst running 18th.

When asked about the future, Klien answered: “Singapore was a one-off to replace Sakon Yamamoto.  Anything else is not in my hands.

“It was really great to be feeling like a proper racing driver again and I do hope I could make my mark this weekend.”

He was less flattering about the Dallara-designed F110 car.

“It behaves just like a rally car,” he told Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat, before joking: “I should probably ask Kimi Raikkonen for advice.”

It is now clear that next year’s formula one tyres will be identical to the ones used in the feeder series GP2.

We reported last month that, as Nick Heidfeld began testing Pirelli’s F1 prototypes at Mugello, also running the tyres for the Italian marque was a GP2 car driven by Briton Ben Hanley.

Pirelli’s track programme continued last week at Paul Ricard, where this time alongside Heidfeld’s 2009 Toyota was Giorgio Pantano in the GP2 Dallara.

“We were using the same tyres as Heidfeld with the 2009 Toyota,” confirmed GP2 technical director Didier Perrin, according to Germany’s Auto Bild.

“This is good news because it means you can use the same tyres in both series, which is important for Pirelli and GP2.

“For the GP2 drivers, it means them racing on the same tyres as in formula one, which would be very useful for their futures,” Frenchman Perrin added.

According to reports in Spain, there might be merger talks afoot between the struggling HRT team, and hopeful 2011 entrant Epsilon Euskadi.

The news agency EFE said the latter’s chief Joan Villadelprat is weighing up two options: the first being acceptance by the FIA to be the 13th team entry in its own right next year.

The second option is reportedly a merger with Hispania, F1′s existing Spanish entrant that is lagging at the rear of the grid and yet to pen a concrete deal for the construction of its next car.

F1 veteran Villadelprat has reportedly already been in contact, some days ago, with Jose Ramon Carabante, the owner of Murcia-based HRT.

Spaniard Villadelprat reportedly asked Carabante “what Hispania needs, what Epsilon can offer and if there is the possibility of collaboration”.

He apparently acknowledged that Le Mans prototype constructor Epsilon Euskadi’s infrastructure rates among “the top five” of the existing F1 teams, but lacks 17 million euros in investment.

The news follows HRT’s split with its 2010 car partner Dallara, and the news that advanced talks were taking place between the team and departed Toyota’s F1 arm Toyota Motorsport.

HRT owner Jose Ramon Carabante has confirmed that the struggling Spanish team is set to collaborate with Toyota.

Team boss Colin Kolles admitted at Hockenheim that working with Toyota Motorsport, the Japanese marque’s former F1 arm based in Cologne, is a “good option” for Hispania.

Driver Bruno Senna, however, indicated that agreements are not yet signed.

But reports suggest HRT, whose partnership with 2010 car builder Dallara has been terminated, will use Toyota’s headquarters and wind tunnel, staff and the designs of its unraced TF110 car.

Carabante has now confirmed the deal by playing down fears in Spain that HRT will no longer be based in Murcia, the autonomous region that is also a sponsor of the team.

In a report by the Spanish news agency EFE, Carabante said that notwithstanding the arrangement with Toyota, the team will remain in Murcia “because the project was born here”.

The report said the deal is worth EUR15 million, with Carabante insisting it “will strengthen Hispania in the battle to be the best of the new teams, which is our first goal”.

EFE said HRT’s technical contract with Toyota Motorsport will be for the 2011 and 2012 seasons.

After separation from HRT Dallara driven the development of their own design team is continuing. Under the leadership of the new technical adviser of the team, Geoff Willis, will soon begin work on next year’s car. “The team would like to get there, to hold its own destiny in hand,” Willis said in an interview with ‘MotorsportTotal’.

“We are currently putting together a small technical group,” said Willis on. This also forces in Britain would be committed. “There are a few people, I want to buy that are there at short notice.” Basically, it was but the goal of the team, its basic long-term rearing in the Hispanic space. In the short term but we must also avoid even the UK.
“In the current Formula 1 world, it is obviously a little easier to carry out such a program in the UK because there is now even a larger group of people living and working,” says Willis. By setting the rules whereby the number of employees per team will be limited further in the future, are especially available in the UK market appropriate staff.

The fixed strain on employees but would rather remain within manageable limits. “In terms of design, so of course we want to do everything themselves in the long term. In the short term but it does not matter at first, if many people are employed, or whether one takes freelancers under contract.”
When the program will definitely start, is still not fixed. “The decisions as to look like the design strategy of the team for 2011 but needs to be made soon,” said Willis. “I’m probably a little uneasy if you have not ordered until the end of July. Ideally, I would like to get on with an aero program, but I think we still have a few weeks time.”

“We are in the fortunate position that we will not build one way or our own gear. The gearbox and the engine is provided by third parties. Coupled with the fact that we have the rules for the coming year in relation to the size of fuel tanks and know the weight, we do not have to play some games in the wind tunnel. This saves us some time so start. If we were to design and build our own gear and we had to have in April. “This season is taking HRT a Cosworth engine and an Xtrac gearbox back.
While striving so in terms of design and development for more personal responsibility, the manufacturing of the parts will continue to accepted by third parties. “For teams of our size, it becomes more and more the norm to leave the actual production done outside the home,” said Willis. In the past we have tried to manufacture as much yourself as you could meet only as certain quality standards.

Meanwhile, it highlighted a considerable number of reliable formula-one suppliers, including in Austria, Germany, England, and Italy. “Now we can say pretty directly, you can do everything external. At least that is certainly our model. But we would certainly not give the complete program to third parties. One way or HRT will have in many ways, the technical control.”

Bruno Senna is in danger of losing his formula one seat, according to a report in the Italian media.

Autosprint reports that the 26-year-old Brazilian could be replaced by HRT’s recently-signed Friday and reserve driver Sakon Yamamoto.

Senna said recently he is grappling with the perception that, at the wheel of the uncompetitive Dallara-built car, he is struggling to live up to the image of his famous late uncle.

“There is a fine line between explaining and moaning,” he said.

“It is very difficult but, in the right place, at the right team and with the right car, I can be world champion,” insisted Senna.

The timing of the Yamamoto speculation is odd, given that Senna’s performance on Saturday afternoon in Turkey marked the first time an HRT driver has outqualified a rival car on a dry track.

Meanwhile, another Italian report claims that Italian GP2 driver Luca Filippi came close to taking over the Sauber seat occupied by Pedro de la Rosa in Turkey.

Italiaracing said an agreement with the 24-year-old was “delayed”, but reports that Filippi could instead make his debut at Valencia later this month.

(GMM)