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.”

As the blown exhaust row between Red Bull and McLaren subsided late on Friday, the latter team was already working hard to catch up with the ever-changing rules.
GP2 driver Oliver Turvey was in McLaren’s Woking driver simulator after it emerged the Renault teams – including dominant Red Bull – have been allowed by the FIA to use 50 per cent throttle under braking.

Earlier, the FIA intended to limit off-throttle engine blowing to 10 per cent, but the Renault teams argued that they need at least 50 per cent on reliability grounds.

McLaren team figures said they only discovered Renault’s 50 per cent concession during free practice on Friday, when Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali was heard telling his counterpart Martin Whitmarsh “The (Red Bull) ******* are doing it again”.

“We were saying ‘Wait a second, can we do that (too)?” Jenson Button told AS newspaper.

It also emerges that Mercedes have been allowed to use 20 per cent throttle, based on the engine maps of the pre-exhaust blowing era in 2009.

“I am sure it has put many teams this weekend a little bit on the back foot so we are trying to cope with that at the moment,” said Whitmarsh.

Brazilian O Estado de S.Paulo journalist Livio Oricchio reports that a further rule clarification is due in the wake of yet another technical meeting on the subject late on Friday.

“The climate of the meeting was tense,” he revealed. “Today (Saturday) the final decision of the FIA should be announced.”

After the first tests of the 2011 winter, Nico Hulkenberg is convinced that Red Bull and Ferrari will once again be the title contenders.
“If you look at them, you know: they are clearly ahead of the rest of the field,” the Force India reserve driver, who has been present both at Valencia and again at Jerez this week, told Germany’s Auto Bild Motorsport.

Mercedes racer Nico Rosberg admitted that he took notice at Valencia last week when the reigning champions Red Bull rolled out their car with pace and reliability.

“I thought ‘This car has been testing somewhere else’. If not, then they are a step ahead of us,” admitted the German.

Nico Rosberg is not yet ringing the alarm bells about Mercedes’ new formula one car.
Recently, when discussing the German marque’s 2010 season, Michael Schumacher admitted he had known by the second winter test that “it was going to be a tough year”.

12 months on, Jerez this week is the scene of the second test of the 2011 pre-season, and Nico Rosberg was a worrying 3 seconds off the pace in the new silver W02 on Thursday.

“This is an interim car,” the German insisted, according to Bild newspaper.

“So you can’t just look at the pace as we have so many new parts to come.”

Also poor on Thursday was the car’s reliability, but Rosberg said technical problems are something “you always expect” from a new single seater.

At the other end of the timesheets, Thursday’s fastest runner was also not overstating the results of the Jerez order.

“The fastest time? It means nothing,” Ferrari’s Felipe Massa is quoted in the Italian media.

Jarno Trulli has revealed that his only motivating factor in 2010 was that things should be better next season.

After spending the best part of a decade with the well-funded Renault and Toyota teams, the Italian veteran steered right to the back of the grid for 2010 by signing with Lotus.

Tony Fernandes’ new Malaysian team has re-signed him for 2011, as Trulli admitted how difficult this season was.

“At the first test it was obvious what the facts were,” the 36-year-old said in an interview with the Dutch magazine formule1.nl.

“I knew the year was over and the only way to keep motivation was to count down to next season,” added Trulli.

Although with a brand new team powered by a smaller than usual budget whose car was designed and built in record time, Trulli admits he did not expect 2010 to be quite so difficult.

“Of course I expected a difficult season in terms of performance, but not so much on the reliability side.

“By the end, I was used to it. What can you do? Getting angry doesn’t help.

“The worst thing was when you had to just finish the race. In Brazil for example the hydraulics failed and I still managed to finish, but it’s not how you like to drive.

“But by Brazil I had reached a point when I didn’t get angry. Not that I was indifferent, but I was doing it for the team.

“It was important to beat the other newcomers to finish tenth in the world championship, so it doesn’t matter if you’re not performing as you want or are tired of the hydraulics failing — the team comes first,” said Trulli.

“Anyway, the season is over now. I managed to motivate myself until the last race and I’m really looking forward to 2011,” he insisted.

Heikki Kovalainen has admitted he is not sure what his F1 team for the 2011 season will be called.

That’s not because the Finn is set to leave his current Malaysian employer, but because ‘Lotus Racing’ is locked in a bitter naming dispute with Group Lotus.

The Turun Sanomat newspaper insists that Kovalainen’s new contract for the 2011 season is secure.

But as for what ‘Lotus’ will be called next year, he answered: “I can’t really say.

“I can’t worry about it. Let’s see what will happen,” added the 29-year-old.

No matter the name of the team, Kovalainen said he is feeling upbeat about 2011.

“The Renault engines and Red Bull gearboxes will certainly increase our reliability and give more ability for the designers to build better aerodynamics around them,” he said.