14/03/2011
NEWS STORY
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Mat Coch writes:
Few were surprised when Hispania Racing Team announced on Friday that its 2011 car wouldn't take part in the final pre-season test ahead of the new season. The beleaguered Spanish outfit has been seemingly scraping through by the skin of its teeth since it was announced it would be on the grid for 2010.
The team failed to participate in any of the pre-season testing ahead of its debut season, Karun Chandhok completing his first laps in Formula One during qualifying for the opening race of the season in Bahrain. In Australia for round two the team recorded its first finish, a thirteenth place for Chandhok, which proved crucial in not finishing bottom of the Constructors' Championship by season end.
Prowess behind the wheel wasn't enough for the likeable Indian however, who found himself out of the car in Germany in favour of Sakon Yamamoto. Ironically photos on the teams website from the German Grand Prix show Chandhok driving a truck during the course of the weekend - one is left to wonder what the Indian thought of its performance by comparison to the car he had been driving. The move may have come a race earlier if suggestions the team only opted to keep Chandhok at the expense of Senna thanks to the insistence of Bernie Ecclestone.
The promotion of Yamamoto seemed to underline the fact the team lacked funds. The Japanese driver is understood to have offered as much as $5million for the seat, a figure which appeared to secure it for him until Singapore where the former Super Aguri driver suffered a case of 'food poisoning' which ruled him out of the event.
It promoted Christian Klien to the race team, giving the squad its fourth driver combination of the season and incidentally some new sponsor stickers for the team's otherwise bland livery. The change triggered speculation once again that the promotion had more to do with finances than talent or illness, since Yamamoto was back at the track on Saturday showing no signs of ill health, even donning his race suit for a team photo shoot.
At the same time there were rumours that the likes of Jacques Villeneuve, in conjunction with former GP2 outfit Durango, were looking to buy the team. Take over talk was so prevalent that some even suggested Stefan GP, the apparently fictitious outfit which attempted to bluff its way onto the 2010 grid to replace the stillborn USGP project, were also interested. When Pitpass gave Hispania team boss Colin Kolles the opportunity to debunk those reports at a press conference in Singapore his response was not the considered denial one would have expected. Instead his harsh and unthoughtful response did nothing to defuse speculation over the team's future.
By seasons end the murmurs over the team's survival had risen in volume to cries of seemingly genuine concern. Somehow it survived, against all odds, a point Kolles was keen to point out to anyone who'd listen.
Even still concerns remained. In May the team announced it had ended it's partnership with Italian design firm Dallara, the company which designed the team's 2010 contender. By October still no announcement regarding a replacement supplier had been made, nor anything suggesting development would take place in-house. There were links to the un-raced 2010-spec Toyota TF110, however while such a deal was talked about at high levels the discussion quickly broke down over finances. The only positive for the team was that while all this was going on a deal with Williams for the supply of gearboxes and hydraulics was penned.
Of course there were other squabbles during Hispania's debut season with the team being sued by law firm DLA Piper over unpaid legal fees. It was also claimed the team quit FOTA, only for it to be revealed that it had in fact failed to fulfil its 2010 'membership fee obligations.'
With such a torrid tale of ongoing drama it's little surprise that the team's new car isn't ready. The world was told in late January that the car wouldn't be ready for the first three tests of the season, though the team hoped to debut it at the final test in Bahrain a week ahead of the season opener.
All that of course changed, the Bahrain test moved to Barcelona and a new test was scheduled to replace the cancelled event. On Friday the team revealed its new car in Barcelona, the F111 which strikes more than a passing resemblance to the car it replaces, a different engine cover coupled with front and rear wings tending to draw the eye away from what looks suspiciously like the 2010 survival shell.
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Led by Geoff Willis a team of forty staff worked on development at breakneck speed to prepare the new car, work starting far later than any other team on the grid. There's a saying in motor sport: Good, fast, cheap - choose any two. If you want something good and fast, it won't be cheap. If you want something cheap and fast, it won't be any good.
Embarrassingly the car wasn't in running order due to the absence of dampers, which are being held by Spanish customs according to the team. A fundamental part of the cars suspension, the team says without the dampers it's unable to run the car as scheduled. However one struggles to understand how a damper can be held in customs while the remainder of the car is not, more so given such components are often off-the-shelf products from second-tier suppliers.
Given that this weekend should have marked the opening race of the 2011 Formula One season it's not a stretch to imagine then that the team would have missed the Bahrain event with its new car, since equipment is generally shipped well ahead of the race itself.
Having been unable to sample the new car, and a raft of technical changes to come to grips with, the team faces an uphill struggle to be fast enough to make the grid in Australia. With the 107% rule reintroduced for 2011 both Narain Karthikeyan and Tonio Liuzzi will have to be significantly more competitive than the eleven seconds off the pace Bruno Senna was when the team debuted last season.