HRT aiming for young second driver

HRT is aiming to hire "a young driver with a lot of potential" to race alongside Pedro de la Rosa for the 2012 season, with the chance of a second spanish driver ruled out by technical director Jacky Eeckelaert.

Pedro de la Rosa was the first driver confirmed by the team for 2012, this was a move to take on a more Spanish identity. Next logical relationship between the team and the "new" wanted spanish identity, was to think about Jamie Alguersuari as a second driver, who was replaced at Toro Rosso, but Eeckelaert told that he didn't think Alguersuari or Dani Clos would be the best option for HRT.

"I don't think it's in the interests of the team to have a second Spanish driver," Eeckelaert said. "The same goes for the drivers approaching retirement."


Eeckelaert is almost ruling out to have Tonio Liuzzi in the team for another season, ending the hopes of the italian of remaining with the team. Eeckelaert said:"He hasn't really confirmed himself after several chances. We are looking more for a young driver with a lot of potential."

One of the most important steps taken by the new management of the team has been to move the team headquarters to Spain, and Eeckelaert claims that it would hurt HRT's progress because they need to hire new staff that will have to work on the car.

"We hope to continue our battle at the back of the pack with Virgin (Marussia). It is difficult to aim higher. The Dallara chassis we used in our first two seasons was clearly not good enough. So in our German workshop we have built our own HRT to be powered by the Cosworth V8. We started fresh in September, later than the others, and so we cannot have fantasies.

"The new owners decided to move the team with the result that 90 per cent of the staff in Germany will not follow us. This is unfortunate because even if the car did not work, the team was beginning to work well together. Now it's as though we are beginning again with a new team."

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HRT Headquarters: Valencia

Hispania Racing team has taken a decision that could be crucial for this season. The spanish team has moved their facilities into a warehouse in the industrial suburbs of the city of Valencia.

We believe that this workshop will be used as the team base for this season, although it is not clear if the team will build the two cars in this facility.
Rumour number 1: Team management realized that they are facing too many problems to have their 2012 cars ready on Melbourne track, so they are trying to get permission to run its 2011 cars untill they finish the 2012 spec cars. This is a bigger problem than it seems since the mechanical parts of a car are designed with a certain period of "life". To add a bigger issue: last year cars have used all the spare parts supply. For last, we are not taking into account that there are a lot of parts that need to be replaced.


All this means that the team’s sub-contractors need to build "new old parts", and by doing that they are going to delay the progress of the 2012 car. (That is if the sub-contractors that are building the new car are the same ones of 2011). To find an alternative supplier at this time of year is going to be difficult because the suppliers are very busy working to supply more than one F1 customer, and in any case, there are not many companies in Spain that can produce parts of the right quality levels to be used in F1. Do you remember one of the reasons that we claim to be the cause of the bad performance in F1 of Toyota? To have your team facilities outside England it is not a great decision. Because you are very far away from were everyone of the suppliers are. Its honorable to set a team with a national identity, but lets face the reality, this is a circus settled in England.

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