HRT Formula 1 Team incorporates Kyocera Document Solutions as its Official Supplier through a collaboration agreement for the 2012 season. The Spanish team will count on Kyocera’s services, which include needs for management and printing of documents, both at the team’s permanent offices in the Caja Mágica and at the mobile offices that travel throughout the world during the Formula 1 season.

Kyocera Document Solutions has a vast experience in the sporting world and, even more so, in the motorsport one, since it’s responsible for the management and printing of documents at the F1 and MotoGP Grands Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya, Valencia Street Circuit and Motorland Aragón. At all of these Kyocera offers high quality devices and services that adapt to the rigurous demands that any F1 Grand Prix has, meeting the demands of the media office and the organization at the circuit itself, including a permanent 24-hour service.

The ceramic components of Kyocera are not only integrated in our printing devices, giving them a greater durability and resistence, but they are also present in many other industries, such as some F1 cars where there are parts incorporating Kyocera’s ceramic components that have to cope with extreme temperatures.

HRT Formula 1 Team continues to progress firmly towards its objective of consolidating itself and growing and it now takes another step forward thanks to the partnership with the multinational Japanese company Kyocera. It’s another support for the young Spanish outfit who, thanks to the seriousness and hard work that it proves day by day, has more national and international companies willing to back HRT, contributing to its consolidation and progress in the pinnacle of motorsport.

Óscar Sánchez, KYOCERA Document Solutions General Manager: “A team such as HRT Formula 1 Team needs to be backed by the most advanced and reliable technology during the most demanding of championships. Kyocera has the latest printing machinery and a highly experimented staff, which makes us a leader in offering documentary services at any sporting events”.

Luis Pérez-Sala, Team Principal HRT Formula 1 Team: “Count on a renowned multinational company as Kyocera is amongst our partners gives us a confidence and calmness of great value for our day to day work. That calmness enables us to focus on pure competition aspects knowing that our backs are covered. Our needs in terms of printing, copying and scanning are high because the engineering, operations, marketing and communications departments are continuously putting the machines to the test and it is of vital importance that this work is not interrupted. In Formula 1 you work to the limit and Kyocera gives us the support and confidence needed to be able to do it”.

ABOUT KYOCERA DOCUMENT SOLUTIONS

KYOCERA Document Solutions is one of the world’s leading management solutions and document printing companies in the world. With a staff of almost 15,000 employees, its range of products and services includes ECOSYS printers, reliable multifunction printers, high-quality printer supplies, an array of software solutions and managed document services. KYOCERA Document Solutions offers innovative products built with long lasting components. Its clients benefit from the market’s lowest total cost of property and from the highest efficiency in any working environment. Its portfolio of solutions and its managed document services contribute not only to reduce the environmental impact but also to improve the efficiency and reliability of business.

The Spanish windscreen repair and replacement company and HRT Formula 1 Team have signed a collaboration deal for Cristalbox to become a new sponsor of the Spanish outfit for 2012. Cristalbox, who have already been linked with the motorsport world for a few years, have decided to extend this link and have taken a step into Formula 1 alongside HRT Formula 1 Team, with the objective of supporting the Spanish team’s project in the pinnacle of world motorsport.

The deal with which Cristalbox joins the team as a sponsor has a one year duration and the glass repair company has bolstered its commitment to HRT’s project by completing a spectacular glazing job at the new Caja Mágica headquarters in Madrid. The creation of a curtain wall at the team’s workshop supposed the installation of more than 25,000 kilogrammes of specially fabricated glass and will enable the team to make the most of the sunlight and environmental conditions.

Just like the conditioning of the other project areas at the Caja Mágica facilities, the installation and reinforcement of the curtain wall has been completed in under a month, thus proving the capacity of the Spanish company to expand its services.

Javier Celaya, Cristalbox General Manager: “A passion for cars is in the genes, the DNA, of our brand and top level competition reflects the essence of Cristalbox’s values: precision, speed, safety, resistance, reliability…From an advertising point of view, after two years sponsoring Formula 1 broadcasts, this was the logical evolution: to form a part of the competition. With HRT we can support a credible Spanish project in the pinnacle of motorsport and strengthen the reach of our brand to our targets”.

Luis Pérez-Sala, HRT Team Principal: “Formula 1 is all about technology and speed, two basic principles which we share with Cristalbox. They are a leading company in our country and we’re proud that they decided to fully submerge in Formula 1 alongside us and fully back our project. I want to thank them for the trust they have put in us and also for the extraordinary efficiency with which they have completed the structure and glazing of the workshop area in our new headquarters at the Caja Mágica. It was a structural and temporal task and they passed it with flying colours. We hope to overcome many other tasks alongside them this year”.

HRT’s team boss has admitted installing KERS is an unlikely goal for the struggling Spanish team this year.

Luis Perez Sala said the new F112 was designed to accommodate the energy-recovery technology, but qualifying comfortably within the 107 per cent rule is a better target for now.

“We have a car we are yet to discover,” he told El Confidencial.

Indeed, HRT travelled to Australia last month having hardly run its new Cosworth-powered car, and failed to qualify for the season opener.

“It is designed to carry KERS but in the short term we will not (use it). We don’t think we’re going to race with it this year,” he added.

“So, in this respect, it’s not perfect. Right now, we have assembled the car in a hurry and so the private testing at Mugello, just after Bahrain, will be very important to us.”

Sala, having rebuilt HRT following the departure of team boss Colin Kolles, was speaking from HRT’s new headquarters at the Caja Magica (Magic Box).

“After Bahrain, we will have the cars here. From the Spanish grand prix, we will begin to function more effectively.

“In China and Bahrain we will improve things in the car and the team, but it is a slow process that will last all year.

“As I sit here (in Madrid), some people are in Valencia, others in Germany, England … the cars are flying to China and we need to address issues of reliability, not just performance.”

It is a tough situation for HRT, but Sala concedes that the ‘paddock perception’ of the team is that it has gone backwards since debuting in 2010.

“It is really our first year,” he insists.

He reveals that Bernie Ecclestone, once a staunch critic of the struggling backmarkers, is “quiet”.

“We have not had any problems, I think he is calm,” said Sala.

It is also a busy time off the track for HRT, as many rival teams are busily signing the new Concorde Agreement for 2013.

“There are teams that are more advanced than others; for us, the negotiations are still at the beginning,” he said.

The most obvious goals right now, Sala insists, are to have “a team that works together, has a reliable car and a small team that can develop it, and we’re around 105pc off the pole”.

Sepang International Circuit, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Sunday, 25th of March 2012

Weather: Rainy – Air 26ºC, Track 28ºC
Race: 56 laps
Track distance: 5.543 km

Pedro de la RosaF112-02 #2221st
Narain KarthikeyanF112-01 #2322nd

Mission accomplished for HRT Formula 1 Team today as Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan crossed the finish line in the 56-lap race that took place at the Sepang International Circuit. It was an eventful race from the beginning with De la Rosa’s car having to start from the pit lane, but a correct tyre strategy gave its rewards when it started raining heavily and the HRT’s were two of a few cars who were running on extreme wet tyres. The event came to a halt only 9 laps in with Karthikeyan and De la Rosa in 10th and 17th place respectively .The cars were on the grid for almost an hour before the restart and Pedro was penalized with a drive-through penalty but, despite all of this, both drivers put in a fantastic shift at the wheel of the F112 that needs as much running time as possible to be at the level it should be. The team also did a good job with the strategy and the mechanics completed their first pit stops.

Overall it was a satisfying result for the team who now has two weeks ahead to prepare for the Chinese Grand Prix in better conditions.

Pedro de la Rosa: “I must say I really enjoyed myself in that race. It really was the best race to make my debut with HRT. I don’t think anyone could imagine we would finish after starting from the pit lane due to an issue with the fuel pressure that we were dragging over from yesterday, I was penalized with a drive-through penalty, we completed our first real pitstop… to sum up, a lot of things happened but, in the end, the car held out really well given where we were at the beginning. We have to improve many things but this was a perfect test. My teammate also finished so that’s doubly satisfying. I’m very happy for the team, we accomplished our objective. Now we have to go a little bit further”.

Narain Karthikeyan: “It was a very interesting race in really wet conditions. We were running in 10th at one point, which I think is the best position we’ve ever been in but unfortunately the rain stopped and the track dried out and it was impossible to keep ahead of the rest. I made a mistake, locking up the front, and went off on turn 9 but apart from that it all went pretty well. We finished the race, did some mileage and made up two positions from 23rd so that’s something to smile about. Everyone did a great job and we’re all really happy with the result, now we have to go on from here and try to progress in China”.

Luis Pérez-Sala, Team Principal: “Yesterday after qualifying we were satisfied and today, thankfully, we are again. We met another target which was to finish the race with both cars. There are aspects that need improving, without a doubt, such as reliability and the speed of the car, but by completing the race we have accumulated a lot of data which will be of great use to continue progressing. We also need to improve pit stops and team coordination but it was the first time they did it and from the first stop to the second you could already tell the difference. Today I want to highlight the work everyone did and thank them for their effort these past weeks and today’s result is a small reward for that enormous amount of work that is taking place”.

 Former boss Colin Kolles and his Greding-based company is no longer involved, but there remains a strong German input with the struggling team HRT.
A report in the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper reveals that the new Cosworth-powered F112 car, which failed to qualify in Melbourne last weekend, was designed and built in Augsburg, a city in the south-west of Bavaria.

It is there that, since November 2011, the Holzer-Gruppe company has been frantically building up the Cosworth-powered cars for Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan.

“Under our management almost everything has been made here in Bobingen,” said Gunther Holzer.

“For the wind tunnel we used the Mercedes facility in Brackley (UK),” he added.

Eight of F1′s 12 teams are based in England, with the others either in Italy (Ferrari and Toro Rosso) or Switzerland (Sauber).

HRT uses Williams’ gearbox.

“We wanted to go our separate way, not like almost everyone else who are all within a few miles of Oxford,” said HRT chief executive Saul Ruiz de Marcos.

The team’s longer plan is to be solely based in Madrid, but for now Holzer will lead the development of the F112.

“For the start of the European season in Spain we are planning the first improvements to the car,” said Marcos.

Holzer explained: “The car is designed first for safety and so is heavy compared to the competition. For the future we are focused on making it lighter.”

Before the lighter car debuts in Barcelona, HRT faces three more challenges – Malaysia, China and Bahrain – at which the sport’s 107 per cent rule will be a major hurdle.

“The goal is to qualify, there is no other,” admitted de la Rosa. “Race reliability is something else we need to work on, but first we have to qualify.”

Ferrari is already working on a major chassis modification that could require the F2012 to undergo a new FIA crash test.
That is the claim on Wednesday of Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport.

The report follows Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo’s alarm at the team’s current situation, with Fernando Alonso expecting Ferrari will have to “suffer” early this season based on recent track testing results.

“I would like to understand why and above all understand how we can very quickly make the necessary changes,” said Montezemolo at the Geneva Motor Show.

Gazzetta said the modification is to the 2012 car’s sidepod area.

Meanwhile, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner told BBC radio on Wednesday that the team will take its updated car to Melbourne, despite its reliability and apparent handling problems at the final Barcelona test.

Team advisor Helmut Marko bluntly described the final day of pre-season testing, when Sebastian Vettel did a paltry 23 laps and was dead-last, as “shit”, but said “sufficient” data was collected the day earlier by Mark Webber.

 HRT on Friday refused to guarantee Narain Karthikeyan will race the full season with the struggling Spanish team.
Albeit with different team ownership and management, HRT began the 2011 season also with Indian Karthikeyan at the wheel, but he was replaced mid-season for the Red Bull-backed Daniel Ricciardo deal.

Reportedly with millions in sponsor backing, 35-year-old Karthikeyan is back on track for this season — but perhaps not guaranteed a place at all twenty races.

“The idea as of now is to race him the whole season, but nothing is taken for granted in F1, you have to work for your place in every race,” team boss Luis Perez Sala told the Indo Asian News Service.

“But as things stand, Karthikeyan and Pedro will race the entire season,” the former Minardi driver added.

While Karthikeyan’s teammate Pedro de la Rosa was testing the 2011 car last week at Jerez, HRT’s new single seater failed two of the FIA’s mandatory crash tests.

That means the team will sit out next week’s Barcelona running altogether.

“We have a new car and a new team. That means, to start with, we will be a little bit behind,” said Sala.

“But we believe that sometimes to improve you must go backwards firstly, we have taken one step backwards in order to take two forward. Our target is to grow little by little as the season goes on.

“If we can stay ahead of Marussia, we will be happy and if we get closer to Caterham, then we will be delighted, but our first objective is to get things under way, improve on reliability and progress as the season advances.”

 Fernando Alonso managed to brighten Ferrari’s spirits before the opening test of the 2012 test concluded.
His best time in Friday’s proceedings was set with soft tyres and still shy of the promising Lotus’ earlier pace, but it nonetheless triggered sighs of relief within the Maranello ranks after a troubled early start.

“At the beginning of the test we had arrived and put our wheels on the ground and were slower than we expected,” Alonso is quoted by Italy’s Autosprint.

“We had to change the way we were working with the car and we are still learning; we will come to Barcelona more prepared.”

“In four days we went from black to white,” Alonso is quoted in Spanish by El Mundo, “but we still have a lot of work to do, particularly on the reliability.”

He is quoted by AS newspaper: “Where will we be in Melbourne? No idea.

“From what we have seen so far, the highlight of the car is that it heats up the tyres so that you can use them to the maximum from the first lap, which is something we could not do last season.

“We still have much to do in the area of the aerodynamics and, above all, the reliability.”

Alonso – like Ferrari in general – is a regular critic of F1′s testing limitations and he admitted it may be a factor in getting the all-new F2012 ready for Melbourne.

“Unfortunately there are only two more tests, which is one less than last year. At Montmelo (Barcelona) we need to be doing at least 100 laps (per day).

“At the moment we are at maybe 20 per cent of what we need to do (before the season) overall.”

Fernando Alonso is not ready to relax despite leaping into a strong points position with just two races left to run in 2010.

It is true that, now with an 11-point lead over Mark Webber, if the Spaniard wins in Brazil in two weeks and his Australian rival is fifth or lower, Alonso will secure his third drivers’ world championship with a race to spare.

But McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh, whose drivers are also still mathematically in the hunt, said: “There is little doubt now the championship decider is going to be in Abu Dhabi.”

Alonso agrees that he cannot rely on another Korea-like outcome before then.

“Red Bull showed us again in Korea that they are stronger than us, and that will be the same in Brazil and Abu Dhabi as well,” the Ferrari driver told El Pais newspaper.

“So what we need is another small step forward to be competitive. We must be on the podium. If someone beats us now, congratulations — winning or losing will depend on who is faster, on reliability and on luck,” added the 29-year-old.

In comments published by Italy’s La Stampa, Alonso said he is not interested in the mathematical possibility of him becoming champion in Brazil.

“Yes, that’s true — and if Red Bull miss their plane to Brazil, that’s another way to be champion,” he joked.

“The odds remain in favour of Red Bull.”

Alonso said the only mathematical certainty is that he cannot lose the championship at Interlagos in two weeks.

“In Korea I have only guaranteed to be fighting in Abu Dhabi in the last race of the season,” he confirmed.

Fernando Alonso I need the engines to the end of the season divided exactly – At Ferrari about a fix already smoked their heads.

In the battle for the championship crown Fernando Alonso wants in the three races to play a major role. But quite apart from the question of whether his Ferrari is competitive enough for it, also plays into it with the motor bottleneck. With the block in Korea as the motor would drive Ferrari in Abu Dhabi. In this case, the season for Alonso would be feasible without penalty.

But if there were an engine problem and a ninth engine must be used, it would be a disciplinary transfer of ten ranks given in the starting lineup – in the championship fight a hard punishment. “If we have reliability problems, it would be traumatic, because then it would be almost impossible to make up the necessary points. Red Bull and McLaren are just extremely strong. We can not afford any mistakes, otherwise it’s over,” said team boss Stefano Domenicali.
Nevertheless, the task is difficult. “It will be extremely difficult to wade to the end,” he said. “We will try to divide the mileage of the current engine. This is the plan and hopefully we make it to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.” Alonso himself has full confidence in his team, however.

“Of course we got our engine problems in the second and third race in a difficult situation, no question, but from then on we have planned the season just different,” said the Spaniard. “Until now we have the situation under control. I’m doing for the last three races, no worries. Everything is okay.”
But Ferrari have to stretch to match the optimism of the star drivers. “The question is how much mileage we get on an engine,” said Domenicali. “We have extended the mileage and tested it at home so it’s no problem. But we must be careful that something is not overheated. At the temperatures we may not be aggressive. We have to watch really in the climatically hot race to South Korea. ”
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With three races left to run in 2010, McLaren’s title-winning rhetoric has turned a corner.

After Suzuka, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button are now 28 and 31 points respectively behind the leader Mark Webber, moving Hamilton to admit that even a winning streak through to November’s Abu Dhabi finale might not be enough now.

“Podiums won’t do it,” he said after a nightmare weekend in Japan, having nursed a second gearbox problem of the event to the chequered flag with an ear infection.

“Wins will get it if the others have problems.  But if Red Bull finish all the races then it’s a walkover,” added Briton Hamilton.

Button is also downbeat about defending his world championship after Japan.

“If we don’t turn up in Korea with some good improvements to get us near the Red Bulls, it is almost impossible,” he said.

“I would like to think we don’t have to hope Red Bull crash or have reliability issues and we have a car to challenge them.  But when they have the pace they had here, they can cruise it,” added Button.

Closer to Webber’s lead – and level-pegging with Sebastian Vettel’s 14 point deficit – is Fernando Alonso, who remains confident of winning his first title at the wheel of a Ferrari.

“We are convinced that this was the worst track of the remaining races for us,” said the Spaniard after finishing third in Japan.

“To be world champion I need one more win and two podiums,” Alonso is quoted by La Stampa.

Also smiling after Suzuka is pole sitter and winner Vettel, despite admitting that his Australian teammate is now tantalisingly close to the title.

“His 14 point lead is of course an advantage,” he said, referring to Webber.

“If he wins again, it will be difficult for all of us,” German Vettel is quoted by Auto Motor und Sport.

“But anything can still happen.”

The 23-year-old’s confidence was boosted by the apparent ease with which he won in Japan.

“Without sounding arrogant,” he said, “I would say I always had Mark under control.

“I could see him all the time,” Vettel told Bild newspaper.  “He was one, two or three seconds behind.  Every time he came a bit closer, I went on the gas a bit more.

“It’s looking okay.  If I win the next three races, everything will be fine, so that must be my goal,” he said.

Entering formula one will not cause Pirelli to increase its budget, chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera said on Thursday.

The Italian company has won its bid to succeed the sport’s departing exclusive supplier Bridgestone in 2011, but its boss played down suggestions the sport is still extremely expensive for participants.

Tronchetti Provera confirmed that teams are paying Pirelli for service over the next three years, adding that the cost to the marque “will be zero compared to our budget”.

And “the advertising campaign … will be switched from other races where we’ve reduced our presence, first of all rallying, where there are new rules starting next year”, he is quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

“We’ll reduce our budget in other racing (categories) and be fully dedicated to formula one,” he said, although Pirelli will also supply GP2 and GP3 next year.

Meanwhile, Pirelli’s director of motorsport Paul Hembrey played down reports the unraced 2010 Toyota car will be used by the marque for F1 tyre testing.

Revealing that a GP2 car will be used instead, he said as “a test-bed, particularly for integrity reasons, reliability and stability, it’s probably a good starting point”.
(GMM)

After two double victories in a row, the McLaren duo Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button tip lies in the Formula 1 World Championship, but Sebastian Vettel wants a new car in Valencia back to the place in the sun. “We can be back in front after the next Grand Prix,” said Vettel’s team boss Christian Horner before the Grand Prix of Europe. The bulls want to “keep up with the new R-bay system and without problems in reliability even local hero Fernando Alonso at bay.

The confidence in the camp of Red Bull is based on several pillars. On the one copied from the “inventor” McLaren F-shaft system, which is not satisfactory after a test in the free practice in Istanbul for the first time in the race and used in the simulation is to represent a time savings of three tenths per lap. “We hope an ordinary leap forward,” Horner said in the journal ‘Speedweek’.
was distributed to the other, the team hopes that repeat the transmission problems of Montréal and the defect is not the devil, who followed the team and especially since the start of the season Vettel. “Yes, we had defects, but every mistake only once. We are all the quirks to the bottom left. It’s just incredible bad luck, which happens especially in Sebastian this year, everything,” said Horner.

At the very least, the Heppenheim, which is before the ninth of 19 World Championship races in the championship behind Hamilton (109 pixels), Button (106), Webber (103) and Alonso (94) with 90 points in fifth for Valencia to be transmission probably can not change. The new device has “lost a bit of oil,” Horner gives as reason that Vettel was in the final stage in Canada are clearly lying in fourth place from the gas, “he can use it again in Valencia. Team-mate Webber, who lost by Vettel finished fifth behind the championship leader, had lost in Montréal by an unscheduled gearbox change shortly before the race five starting slots.

The Aussie, who recently was quickly four times in a row in qualifying wants to beat Vettel in Valencia again. “That he can create. For if he was behind it, it’s because of a defect, as in Turkey, due to a driving error like in Montreal or he was beaten only a tenth of a second,” said Horner.

imagine Despite the current benefit, the McLaren drivers not in security: “It’s a surprise that the Red Bulls are not in leadership. They were at every race so fast, but we have more made of it,” said defending champion button that as Webber and Hamilton this year has already celebrated two victories. Hamilton also sees its first championship lead since winning the title in November 2008 “not granted” on.
The Mercedes team with Nico Rosberg and world champion Michael Schumacher, who is the first time since 2004 on an unfamiliar route hopes in Valencia placements at less concerned with the tires and thus better. Meanwhile, Alonso is Ferrari’s home race at a comprehensive revised version of the B-F10 available, which also has an R-bay system and has taken some of the bonds in the aerodynamics of Red Bull. With the new car he was allowed to drive even at short film, Alonso will now shine on home soil – and to inspire both the Spanish and the Italian fans.

“The Italian mentality, and the Spanish are similar, and the habits of life. We both also have the same passion for the race,” Alonso describes in the ‘Sport Bild’, why he feels so comfortable at Ferrari. “We might have to say: There are two grown together, which somehow belong together forever. I have the impression that the people enjoy this combination in the world. Especially in Spain and Italy, the mood is downright enthusiastic about it. It makes me proud.”