14/03/2010
NEWS STORY
Hispania Racing F1 Team successfully competed in their first Grand Prix today at Bahrain after His Highness the King of Spain Juan Carlos visited the team garage in the morning. The team completed its first 20 laps in race conditions at the Bahrain Grand Prix in extremely hot conditions with air temperature at 35 Centigrade for the start of the 49 lap / 308.405km race.
Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna started from the pitlane, and Karun Chandhok's race ended when he went off track two laps later. Bruno Senna had a trouble free first twelve laps, lapping consistently. Bruno Senna experienced his first pit stop in a race on lap 12 and thanks to the team's swift work went very smoothly. On lap 18, a broken water fitting from the radiator caused the car to lose all its water and overheated the engine, forcing the Brazilian to retire.
Dr Colin Kolles, team principal: "I am satisfied the way things went. Karun Chandhok stopped early in the race, but it was not a mechanical failure, he could not know that the bump was there having too few miles in his car and had just never experienced that the bump was where it was on this track. We will go home with lots of important data to make step forwards as the season moves into the second Grand Prix and continue making consistent improvements. The focus today for the team was to start the race and run both cars on track. I would like to thank everyone for their dedication and we have taken an historic first step."
Bruno Senna: "It was certainly a relief to have been in the race for so many laps. Everything was going well. I felt I had a little too much understeer. I had a good base set-up now after these laps and my engineers will have a better starting point to work from for next race. There was a vibration from the back of the car a lap earlier and then the car suddenly stopped. We'll have to investigate what happened. But I am very happy for the whole team for their incredible hard work to ensure we are in a position to be racing again in Melbourne."
Karun Chandhok: "Sorry, this was my fifth lap on this track. I hit a bump in the new part of the circuit, I was not that much experienced in that part of the track as I had driven only 4 timed laps over the week-end. I was pushed on exit curb, trying to bring tyres in gently, I did not know that part of the circuit.
I want to thank my mechanics for accompanying my first laps on this track and the whole team for a great week-end and long sleepless hours. Now let's look forward to start again in Melbourne."