The HRT thread

[ElizabethSterling]

Yes pull rod is new for this year.

Just out of curiosity, do you have insider knowledge of the team because you seem to have information about them long before anyone else.

I'm confused - why would you need insider information to compare the available info on the F112 to pictures of the F111?

[Wizzie]

Yes pull rod is new for this year.

Just out of curiosity, do you have insider knowledge of the team because you seem to have information about them long before anyone else.

I'm confused - why would you need insider information to compare the available info on the F112 to pictures of the F111?

But it's not just the F112 he's told us about over the past month or so which has turned out to be true long before anyone else got word of it.

[mario]

Speaking of the technical specification of the F112, the team have chosen to give us the front and rear wheel track but not the wheelbase. I wonder why?

[koza]

Propably they're still wondering about that

[cbbcisace]

Lets just say my Spanish helps....

Plus Williams 2012 car uses pull rod I believe and HRT are just using the rear end of the FW34.

In regards to wheelbase, that will be longer to package the KERS for this year.

It seems in regards to this weekend:-

Saturday: Presentation & Shakedown
Sunday: Full Day of Testing
Monday: "Filming Day"

[DanielPT]

Lets just say my Spanish helps....

Plus Williams 2012 car uses pull rod I believe and HRT are just using the rear end of the FW34.

In regards to wheelbase, that will be longer to package the KERS for this year.

It seems in regards to this weekend:-

Saturday: Presentation & Shakedown
Sunday: Full Day of Testing
Monday: "Filming Day"

One day of testing? That is a massive 1 day more than the last two years. Expect HRT to match Caterham. If they do that, then they will surely have the championship with the full 3 weeks testing!

[cbbcisace]

Well that all I expected since the crash tests only passed last weekend.

[DanielPT]

Well that all I expected since the crash tests only passed last weekend.

There was some noises around saying they would do a full 2 day testing. Nevertheless I expected them to do none given what happened with the crash tests. I saying it is great for them and hopefully they have a half-decent vehicle.

[AdrianSutil]

Lets just say my Spanish helps....

Plus Williams 2012 car uses pull rod I believe and HRT are just using the rear end of the FW34.

In regards to wheelbase, that will be longer to package the KERS for this year.

It seems in regards to this weekend:-

Saturday: Presentation & Shakedown
Sunday: Full Day of Testing
Monday: "Filming Day"

Your like our HRT 'mole'

It's good to see them try and do a bit of testing soon.

[cbbcisace]

HRT have learnt from last year that the chassis need putting together at least so they can go straight away from FP1 in Aus. It's not going to be the best schedule for the weekend, but let's see..

[AdrianSutil]

HRT have learnt from last year that the chassis need putting together at least so they can go straight away from FP1 in Aus. It's not going to be the best schedule for the weekend, but let's see..

We can all agree on one thing: Its a better situation than over at Marussia. I'm confident they can put a sizeable gap between themselves and the 'joke' Marussia.

[cbbcisace]

And I'm sorry to say this but HRT have got their act together ever since Dr. Kolles has left

EDIT: New Sponsor: KH-7 http://www.hrtf1team.com/en/noticias/kh ... n-hrt.html

[mario]

HRT have learnt from last year that the chassis need putting together at least so they can go straight away from FP1 in Aus. It's not going to be the best schedule for the weekend, but let's see..

We can all agree on one thing: Its a better situation than over at Marussia. I'm confident they can put a sizeable gap between themselves and the 'joke' Marussia.

Having the opportunity to run their car for a single day will give them a sizeable advantage in theory, since it gives them a chance to see how their car performs and to see how much of an influence set up changes have on the behaviour of the car. Marussia will have to do all of that in the races themselves - assuming that reliability isn't an issue - and HRT have the chance to improve their reliability a little before the start of the season, increasing the chances that they may get a halfway decent finishing position through the misfortunes of others.
All in all, although HRT haven't had an easy off season by their own admission, at least Perez Sala is starting the season in a slightly better position - whilst Marussia in theory have some reasonably strong people within their team, it may well be that HRT can open up a gap for at least the opening flyaway races, and perhaps hold onto that advantage if Marussia can't marshal their resources.

And I'm sorry to say this but HRT have got their act together ever since Dr. Kolles has left

EDIT: New Sponsor: KH-7 http://www.hrtf1team.com/en/noticias/kh ... n-hrt.html

So they are beginning to fill up some of the empty space on their car then - the process of obtaining a large number of small sponsors has paid off for some smaller teams in the past, so maybe it makes more sense to focus on a larger number of smaller deals rather than chasing a single big sponsor.

[cbbcisace]

In regards to Sponsors, I ultimately think it is the way to go until confidence in the team starts to get better and then the bigger sponsors can be attained.

All in all just to get the reliability on the car before Australia will be the biggest thing HRT can do, if some small F112 set up work can be done, great!

[slowest_indian]

More good news, however small it may be.

Do they still have a link up with Base Batteries and Hero Motors? Or did Karthikeyan just bring TATA this time round?

Cheers

[cbbcisace]

It seems at the moment just TATA but Hero and Base are associated with Narain on his website? Bit of a strange one...

[slowest_indian]

The deal with Base was for 3 years I believe.

Perhaps the logos will only appear on the car at the Indian GP again, as I don't think Base or Hero have much, if any, presence in the market outside of India.
With Virgin announcing 3 new sponsors hopefully HRT will have a few smaller ones lined up too, perhaps the idea of attracting Spanish investment is starting to pay off.

They've certainly got more deals going on than last year...

[cbbcisace]

Exactly, things are starting to look more responsible and professional.

In regards to BASE & Hero Motors or any Sponsors Narain has got, It would do the companies no harm in being on the cars all season it is exposure where ever in the world.

Maybe we will see Burger King on the cars this year at the Spanish races, remember Sauber having it in 2010??

[David AGS]

Hope de la Rosa brings Repsol again. But you may see Santander on car as that is his personal sponsor.

Will be interesting to see the new car/livery.

[Pointrox]

DLR can also bring El Corte Inglés aboard.
Carabante was once in talks with them and they were Pedro's sponsors in 2010.

It's a Spanish chain of supermarkets, and quite a big player there so it only adds to the value of their sponsorship

[AdrianSutil]

Minardi survived for years thanks to their littany of tiny sponsors, so HRT should go the same way until the team is 'financially sound' and can start opening their market to bigger sponsors.

[DanielPT]

Minardi survived for years thanks to their littany of tiny sponsors, so HRT should go the same way until the team is 'financially sound' and can start opening their market to bigger sponsors.

Bearing in mind that Minardi never did got 'financially sound' before being bought and transformed into a junior team... They just managed to survive. Ahhh, Minardi... Come back please!

[AdrianSutil]

Minardi survived for years thanks to their littany of tiny sponsors, so HRT should go the same way until the team is 'financially sound' and can start opening their market to bigger sponsors.

Bearing in mind that Minardi never did got 'financially sound' before being bought and transformed into a junior team... They just managed to survive. Ahhh, Minardi... Come back please!

I may have worded it a little bit wrong. But what I'm getting at is HRT have an excellent chance of continually improving their staffing levels and development on the car thanks to the new sponsors.

[cbbcisace]

We may not see the F112 now at Barca, if we do it may only be on Monday for a filming day..

[xxiiooiixx]

We may not see the F112 now at Barca, if we do it may only be on Monday for a filming day..

Call me delusional but I think HRT will surprise us this year(in a good way), with such hard times the over the last 2 years they can only improve. The f111 was mostly carry over from the f110 (dallara), the same car people still say was more like a GP2 car. So the f112 is a fresh start and had some more mainstream designers , and also now that the blown diffusers are banned hopefully the teams ahead have lost something like 0.5- 1 second per lap?? Assuming HRT will not loose too much as well. Also once HRT realize that they need KERS they might gain 0.4-0.6 sec per lap. So its entirely possible that HRT will improve in pace?

What I am mostly worried about is if HRT can maintain or improve their reliability from last year, sicne Kolles has left and there are load of new people in the team. Cbbcisace what do you think seems like your information has been pretty accurate up till now?

[cbbcisace]

I'd ask Mario...

In all seriousness, HRT was around 4.5/5 seconds of ultimate pace last year, if they are within 3.0/3.5 seconds this year from Australia then that would be good, from my point of view. HRT will gain ground, but lose it as the same time but I have faith that the F112 is built to a high standard, don't forget that Geoff Willis started the design from scratch.

The F112 has no carry over what so ever, so everything is new out of the box, that is why the car is taking quite a while to build up, it can only be a good thing that the Dallara car is assigned to history now

They have a decent driver pairing in Pedro and Narain so they should harass everything out of the car.

Its going to be an interesting season!

[mario]

I'd ask Mario...

In all seriousness, HRT was around 4.5/5 seconds of ultimate pace last year, if they are within 3.0/3.5 seconds this year from Australia then that would be good, from my point of view. HRT will gain ground, but lose it as the same time but I have faith that the F112 is built to a high standard, don't forget that Geoff Willis started the design from scratch.

The F112 has no carry over what so ever, so everything is new out of the box, that is why the car is taking quite a while to build up, it can only be a good thing that the Dallara car is assigned to history now

They have a decent driver pairing in Pedro and Narain so they should harass everything out of the car.

Its going to be an interesting season!

Until we see the car hit the track I'm in no greater position to judge how well HRT are doing than anybody else. As others have said though, given that Cosworth could not replicate the retarded ignition maps that Renault or Mercedes were using, the loss in performance due to the changes in the exhaust regulations should be lessened for the Cosworth powered teams. Added to that, HRT have had access to the second wind tunnel Mercedes has (although it is a little unclear how many hours of wind tunnel testing time they have used up), plus access to the latest drivetrain technology from Williams (which, despite the problems Williams have had recently, would be an improvement on what they had before).
The slight downside is that the F112 will not be using KERS right away - they have designed the car so KERS can be fitted at a later date, and therefore had to accept the compromises that brings, but they are probably going to wait until the in season test before they try out their KERS and decide whether or not they want to run it. That does suggest that they might lose a little time to their rivals in the early part of the season, but should recover that once the European leg of the championship is underway. Furthermore, that should be one major advantage that HRT has over Marussia - Symonds has stated that they will start the season without KERS because they are looking to gain more time through optimised aerodynamics.

[Ferrim]

Minardi survived for years thanks to their littany of tiny sponsors, so HRT should go the same way until the team is 'financially sound' and can start opening their market to bigger sponsors.

Bearing in mind that Minardi never did got 'financially sound' before being bought and transformed into a junior team... They just managed to survive. Ahhh, Minardi... Come back please!

Minardi actually were pretty close to be "financially sound" in the late 90s, to the point where they could sell the whole car to a big sponsor while keeping their miriad of small ones. Shame they couldn't put their hands on a proper engine.

[mario]

Sadly, it now looks like the optimism for HRT might have been ill founded - Autosport are reporting that the contractor in Germany who was preparing the car has been unable to get the car ready by today, which means that the car is now going to miss its scheduled launch on Sunday. HRT are still hoping, by the sounds of things, to take the car to Barcelona for promotional purposes, so at least they might be able to shake the car down on Monday. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97814

[Pointrox]

Sadly, it now looks like the optimism for HRT might have been ill founded - Autosport are reporting that the contractor in Germany who was preparing the car has been unable to get the car ready by today, which means that the car is now going to miss its scheduled launch on Sunday. HRT are still hoping, by the sounds of things, to take the car to Barcelona for promotional purposes, so at least they might be able to shake the car down on Monday. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97814

I hope they will at least do some installation laps so that they would only do the necessary adjustments on practice sessions.

Oh, and by the way: my reaction.

[DanielPT]

Sadly, it now looks like the optimism for HRT might have been ill founded - Autosport are reporting that the contractor in Germany who was preparing the car has been unable to get the car ready by today, which means that the car is now going to miss its scheduled launch on Sunday. HRT are still hoping, by the sounds of things, to take the car to Barcelona for promotional purposes, so at least they might be able to shake the car down on Monday. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97814

Strike 3 for the number of years without testing a new car before the season... It is a bit of a shame really. I was looking forward to see an improved HRT and that it is still to happen. We will have to wait for Australia, but having two teams to skip the pre-season can't be any good.

[cbbcisace]

Ok couple of new bits of news.

It seems the car is not too far away, I believe a couple of parts where late in arriving, that's what the hold up was.

Somethings from twitter and the press this evening.

“@alanbaldwinf1: Talked to @narainracing who sounded in good spirits despite HRT being unable to get their car to Barcelona in time for final test.”

“@alanbaldwinf1: He's in Germany, where the car is being finished. but hoping HRT can do a filming day in Barcelona on Monday.”

“@alanbaldwinf1: The HRT is being built at Inningen, near Augsburg, and not in Greding. That's Colin Kolles territory.”



HRT may not shoot tomorrow in the final day of testing the circuit, yet the team led by Perez-Sala has aimed to accumulate miles in a day filming private. Pedro de la Rosa has talked about this and more in a press conference at the team motorhome.

After hearing the news this morning that the HRT F112 will not be ready to take part in tests of maañana, the Spanish team a new target is marked so he could earn some shooting before reaching the GP of Australia. "Make a day filming would be important for us," admitted Pedro de la Rosa today at his press conference. "It seems that on Monday we can make some miles."

"I'm very happy, but aware of the amount of work ahead, because we have two months late and with virtually no preseason began. We're going to have to do to 100%."

"The first six months will be very hard because the car is back to 100%, is all new, not an evolution or other equipment. Addition, the team is also new in 80 or 90%. Will be difficult months but interesting. "

"Sinceramenmte, my contribution so far is 0, you have to work on the car, drive it so we can work on it and let them see our work. For now the struggle is between mechanical and inegeniros, working 24 hours a day to bring the car to Barcelona. "

"Yes there is some bitter aftertaste, but I'm surprised that we are here and more likely to train on Monday. Make the filming day is not 100% sure if we shot Monday for me is a victory, hoping to go to Austrlaia without training. 10, 15 or 20 laps will be a victory. "

"The important thing is that if there is a serious problem in the car several days of work, you can do from here to Australia. The seat I did 48 hours ago, you have to polish it to be comfortable in the new car."

"We still have not seen it whole, I've seen in photo and the monocoque for the seat, but not assembled in one piece. I'm not objective, I loved it, but when you've been waiting for months to see your new car can not be otherwise manner. Thursday when I left Munich he was beginning to decorate. She looked good, though, the trend is around the paddock, that jump in the nose pretty bad. Logic says that where we ended last year HRT other members.

"Dani (Clos) has experience, has run with HRT, knows something the team and is a good driver. The more we can train more is going to involve Dani. At the moment I tasted and I, little can bring."

[cbbcisace]

In his full interview from Reuters, Naran quoted as saying they missed tomorrows test by 24 hours, so they have applied and got permission for the Monday filming day.

The F112 is a step up and has had his seat fitting done.

[Peter]

Geoff Willis is a reasonably talented designer, maybe he was able to scrape together something that could take on Caterham on pace.

[xxiiooiixx]

I think because the F112 can be compared with last years FW33(gearbox& engine) once HRT run KERS, this will be a good chance to see how good a designer Geoff Willis really is. I really do hope HRT is in reach of Caterham.

I wish HRT would just post some pictures of the F112 online fans cant wait anymore!

[cbbcisace]

According to Marca and a few other websites, the cars have been fired up and on there way to Barcelona!

[xxiiooiixx]

According to Marca and a few other websites, the cars have been fired up and on there way to Barcelona!

So I doubt we will see any images of the new car today. What time did the car leave Germany?

[xxiiooiixx]

I see that Marussia will be running their car tomorrow at silverstone. I guess HRT is not that ahead this year.

[cbbcisace]

According to Marca and a few other websites, the cars have been fired up and on there way to Barcelona!

So I doubt we will see any images of the new car today. What time did the car leave Germany?

Well it was fired up at 1pm so any where after that...

[IdeFan]

I see that Marussia will be running their car tomorrow at silverstone. I guess HRT is not that ahead this year.

At least they've "closed the gap" in terms of pre season preparation, lets hope they've closed the gap on speed too, the gap wasn't too big at the end of last year, but they did have (IMO) a stronger driver line-up.