Engineer Toni Cuquerella assumes, as of today, the role of Technical Director of HRT Formula 1 Team. Cuquerella, besides being at the head of technical development, will continue to exercise his role as the maximum figure of engineering on the track.

Since Geoff Willis left the team in September of 2011, the position of Technical Director has not been occupied. The decision was then made for the development of the F112 to take place at the team’s technical office in Munich, at the hands of Holzer Group and the Chief of Aerodynamics, Stephane Chosse, under the supervision of the, until last February, Technical Coordinator Jacky Eeckelaert.

With the F112 put on the track, it’s now time to work on its development and evolution and so, the naming of a person to lead this project is necessary. And no one better than Toni Cuquerella, with his experience in Formula 1 and his praiseworthy work at the fore of HRT, to take it on.

The appointment of the Spanish engineer at the head of the technical department is a new step in the new management’s desire to centralize and take control of all the activities related to the design and development of the car. This will optimize the coordination of the different departments, helping to meet the set targets, and also rationalize resources.

Toni Cuquerella, Technical Director: “The role of Technical Director implies a great amount of responsibility in terms of coordination and decision making. That’s why I’m very proud that the management considers me to be the most adequate person to carry it out. Until now there was a lot of dispersion from within the technical team and that had its repercussions in the concept and quality of the F112. My priority is to solve the current car’s problems to then develop it to its maximum potential, whilst also unifying and expanding the technical department, but I’m confident that we have a good work base and a clear direction to advance and have a good project for the future”.

Luis Pérez-Sala, Team Principal: “Toni Cuquerella has been a key figure in the team since its inception and, above all, in this new stage. The transition from the previous project to this one hasn’t been easy and a lot of work has been carried out that without vital figures such as him wouldn’t have been possible. The position of Technical Director was vacant and the development of the F112 was carried out at the technical office in Munich. But now, with the car already on the track, it was important to take control and count on someone influential at the head of the technical office. And because of his experience, judgment and knowledge, Toni’s profile fitted in perfectly”.

Profile
Date of birth: 14th of April 1973
Place of birth: Gandia, Spain
Nationality: Spanish

Antonio Cuquerella was born in Gandía, Spain 38 years ago. He did a degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Universidad Politécnica of Valencia.

In 1999 he had his first role as a race engineer for Campos GP at the Open Nissan. After this he worked in various national and international motorsport categories before becoming Chief Engineer of the Toledo WTCC and Leon WTCC projects at SEAT Sport.

In 2006 he arrived in Formula 1 as a race engineer for Super Aguri F1, where he spent two years before moving to BMW Sauber F1 Team, acting in the same role with driver Robert Kubica.

Towards the end of 2009 he decided to take a risk and back Adrián Campos in a project to establish a new Spanish team in Formula 1, becoming the Chief Race Engineer for Campos Meta. Since the team’s first season, Toni has been the Chief Race and Test Engineer and has been a key figure both in the early days and this new stage of HRT and now he assumes an even more important role as the Technical Director.

 Paddock insiders already have a name for Mercedes’ new front wing innovation — ‘W-duct’.
We have reported that the German marque has already tested the F-duct style concept at the front of its newly-launched W03 car.

The Finnish broadcaster MTV3, describing the system as ‘W-duct’, has provided some detail as to how it works.

When the car is being driven in a straight line, air flows into the tip of the silver car’s nose and is dispersed in a W-like pattern across the length of the front wing.

But when the car is cornering, the air flows more predominantly to one side or the other, improving the balance and handling.

Unlike the driver-operated rear wing F-duct, which was banned for 2011, Mercedes’ system is entirely passive and requires no moving parts, and is therefore legal.

Meanwhile, team boss Ross Brawn on Tuesday defended Mercedes’ strategy of employing numerous technical bosses, including Aldo Costa, Bob Bell and Geoff Willis.

“How it works is a mystery to me,” Red Bull’s Dr Helmut Marko told Die Welt newspaper, “but Mercedes must know what they’re doing.”

Mercedes aims to give Nico Rosberg a winning car soon, but the German is also learning to be patient.

Now with more than 100 grands prix behind him, the 26-year-old is yet to record a single race victory and he has now re-signed with Mercedes for at least the next two or three seasons.

Then called Brawn, the Brackley based team won the world championship with Jenson Button in 2009, but that was on the coat-tails of the hundreds of millions invested by Honda.

Today is different, Mercedes-Benz’s Norbert Haug warns.

“He needs to understand that the team is still young,” the German is quoted as saying by Turun Sanomat newspaper.

“Brawn won the championship in 2009 but now the team has a completely different structure.

“Mercedes makes the engines but the rest of the budget comes from sponsors and the income from FOM.”

Haug likens Rosberg to Mika Hakkinen, who after years of toiling without tasting a win finally broke through at the end of 1997 with Mercedes power.

“After that he couldn’t be stopped,” he said.

With his new contract in his pocket, Rosberg revealed in Abu Dhabi that he is prepared to wait a little longer for his breakthrough.

“I would say that right now it will be a lot of patience (needed),” he told F1′s official website. “But there is no doubt in my mind that it is absolutely worth it.”

The German is quoted by Auto Motor und Sport as revealing that amid the recent interest of some other teams, he was buoyed by Mercedes’ obvious determination to succeed.

“The decisive thing for my decision was the commitment of the management, underlined by the signing of Geoff Willis and Aldo Costa.

“It is quite clear that Mercedes wants to be the best team on the grid.”

Finally, Rosberg – who doesn’t have a manger – thanked his famous father Keke for his help in organising the new Mercedes deal.

“He took care of the paperwork and I am grateful for that,” he said.

Michael Schumacher has extended his Mercedes deal for another season, the German weekly Sport Bild reports.
The 42-year-old’s existing contract was set to run only until the end of next season, but Sport Bild said the seven time world champion is now staying at least until the end of 2013.

“There is no reason why Michael should not continue,” said team boss Ross Brawn. “He’s very valuable to the team and has not lost his edge.”

Schumacher hinted that he is not yet ready to return to retirement.

“I have proved I can run in the races faster than my teammate Nico Rosberg; overall we are on the right track.

“It is unlikely that in 2012 we will be in a position to go for the title, because first we need to lay down the foundation that we can then use in 2013,” he added.

Added Mercedes-Benz’s Norbert Haug: “Whoever wrote off Michael has been proved wrong. He is driving fantastic races; no one has made up more positions than him on the first lap.”

The next step for the Brackley based team is to keep Nico Rosberg beyond 2012, even though reports the 26-year-old could be snapped up immediately by Ferrari have proved wide of the mark.

“Winning with the Silver Arrows is my primary goal, but of course you always keep your options open,” he is quoted as saying.

The team looks strong on the technical front, with five former rival chiefs – Brawn and Aldo Costa (Ferrari), Bob Bell (Renault), Loic Bigois (Prost) and Geoff Willis (HRT) – all now peddling for Mercedes.

Geoff Willis has not left the HRT team yet, a spokeswoman for the Spanish team insisted on Friday.

It has been reported in recent days that Briton Willis – the former Red Bull, Williams and Honda technical chief – was leaving due to not being happy about the plans for the 2012 budget and car.

The reports also said former BMW and Brawn designer Jorg Zander is set to join HRT.

The team’s communciations boss Maria Serrat said on Friday that Willis is officially “still rendering his services to HRT”.

It is understood, however, that the 51-year-old will definitely not be leading the 2012 car project.

After McLaren and Ferrari fielded cars with winning pace in July, Red Bull could be challenged even more once this month’s summer break ends.
That is the view of Mercedes’ Ross Brawn, who thinks the championship is likely to heat up at Spa-Francorchamps and beyond.

“It’s impossible to predict what will happen from Spa,” he is quoted by Brazil’s O Estado de S.Paulo, “but I think that as we saw Ferrari and McLaren managing to make their cars faster over the last three races, they are likely to improve even more.”

Agreed Renault’s sporting director Steve Nielsen: “Because Ferrari and McLaren are developing the aerodynamic exhaust later than Red Bull, they have more potential to improve it.”

Toro Rosso’s veteran technical chief Giorgio Ascanelli, however, disagrees, and HRT’s Geoff Willis explains: “I know Adrian (Newey) well from Williams and how he works when the opposition gets tougher.

“I predict they (Red Bull) will come back to dominating the races, although not like early in the season because the competitors have come to understand some of their solutions.”

While McLaren’s drivers won the last two grands prix, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso would have won the championship by three points over Sebastian Vettel if the season consisted only of Valencia, Silverstone, the Nurburgring and Hungary.

Red Bull, meanwhile, might struggle on the high speed sections at Spa and then Monza.

“That’s right, those two tracks are not exactly our best ones,” Mark Webber told laola1.at in Austria this week.

“So we need to limit the damage and then attack again when we can,” added the Australian.

There are management changes afoot at the back-of-the-grid HRT team.

It was rumoured at Valencia last weekend that Geoff Willis, the Spanish team’s technical director, could soon move into a higher management position.

At the same time, Germany’s motorsport-total.com reports that Gary Savage, formerly a close colleague of Willis’ at BAR/Honda some years ago, is close to signing on at HRT in a senior technical post.

Savage was seen in the paddock at Montreal and Valencia, and HRT confirmed that it is in “advanced discussions” with the engineer.

Another ex-BAR man already at Hispania is Jacky Eeckelaert.

GrandPrixActual reports that the Willis/Eeckelaert/Savage trio, with Hispania to soon kick off its aerodynamic programme in BAR’s old wind tunnel at Mercedes’ Brackley facility, might result in current HRT boss Colin Kolles losing his job.

Team owner Jose Ramon Carabante said: “He helped this team to be born but I have not signed a lifetime contract with Colin Kolles.

“If we agree, we will continue together, and if not, we will go on with other people.”

Should Kolles leave, it would raise many questions about the basic structure of HRT, with the team effectively based at the moment at the Romanian’s TME facility at Greding, Germany.

Meanwhile, with technical director Sam Michael set to leave and Mike Coughlan now starting work, Williams on Tuesday announced two more senior appointments.

Jason Somerville, joining from Renault, will be the new head of aerodynamics, while former Toyota man Mark Gillan is joining as chief operations engineer.

“We now feel that, together with Mike, Jason and Mark can form the right technical leadership to take the team forward as we work our way back to the front of the grid,” said Sir Frank Williams.

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.”

HRT on Wednesday morning confirmed that its relationship with Italian chassis maker Dallara has ended.

Amid multiple criticisms of the F110 car from within the new Spanish outfit, it has been reported for some time that the Dallara contract was terminated.

“It was clear from the outset that the contract with Dallara is completed,” team boss Colin Kolles was quoted as saying last month.

“It ended on the date on which we ran our cars,” he added.

In a press release on Wednesday morning, the team confirmed the split, insisting it is “on amicable terms”.

But the statement also revealed that after six races in 2010, “no further chassis development was made by Dallara”.

“HRT … will continue to develop and improve the Dallara designed F110 chassis via its own development programme,” the statement added.

Amid suggestions the Dallara split would convince consultant Geoff Willis to sign up as technical director, Kolles said earlier this month that the team will build its own car for 2011.
(GMM)

Colin Kolles has confirmed reports that Bernie Ecclestone is helping the struggling HRT team with its plans for the future.

F1 chief executive Ecclestone was quoted in Monaco as suggesting he is helping the new Spanish outfit to get out of financial trouble.

But subsequent reports have clarified that the 79-year-old’s assistance may in fact be in the form of HRT’s technical plans.

The team’s contract with its car designer Dallara has lapsed, and boss Kolles has been working on securing a deal with a wind tunnel in view of designing an all-new car for 2011.

“Obviously we are still not competitive enough, even for our expectations as a new team, and we are seeking solutions for the future,” the Romanian-born German is quoted by Spain’s AS.

“We are optimistic and Bernie is helping us to ensure a better 2011,” he added.

Kolles insists the speculation about HRT collapsing is wide of the mark, amid suggestions the team could run out of spare parts by June’s race in Montreal.

“The team will complete the season and we are already planning for the next one,” he said.

“We hope to make an announcement next month – certainly before the Canadian grand prix – about our plans to build our own chassis,” said Kolles.

It is also reported that Geoff Willis, currently just a consultant to HRT, is set to stay with the team because of its ambitious technical plans for 2011.

(GMM)

The formerly high-profile Williams, McLaren and Honda technical boss, who left Red Bull in the middle of last year, said in Malaysia that he was “disappointed” with the Dallara car and unsure whether significant progress could be made. It was reported from Sepang last weekend that the 50-year-old Briton, who began working with the new Spanish team as a consultant during its pre-season struggle for survival, was considering whether to now leave the outfit.

It was said he will make a decision about his future around the time of next weekend’s Chinese grand prix.

Finland’s Turun Sanomat, as well as Italy’s Autosprint, report that Willis’ departure is likely.

It is said that Briton Willis could switch to Force India, in the wake of technical director James Key’s move to Sauber.

Key was replaced in February by Mark Smith.
(YF1)