Grand Prix Rejects

I believe the Whole Spanish Press will like it that HRT qualified.

Hope they will. I can say, the supporting force on HRT's facebook page is simply awesome. well they're most spanish, but still.

The only reliability problem they have is oil leaking. Something they appear to have ironed out already. They may or may not finish tomorrow. The odds are stacked towards them, the Cosworth is a proven reliable engine, and the Williams gearbox is good too. Only another oil problem or a new problem will cause retirement.

I find it hard to believe that Liuzzi lasted almost 50 laps! Some much needed running for them though which I imagine will be incredibly useful as the season goes on. Pace-wise they're well off the Virgins, Liuzzi was losing around half a second a lap at least to D'Ambrosio I think but maybe that will come with upgrades? As chief Virgin supporter I sincerely hope not!

HRT has brought the fire. Virgin had better ensure the soundness of their wind tunnel-less chastity belt(s) as the season progresses.

Amazingly HRT lads were doing fine today.
I think I've seen one of the drivers actually attempted an attack on one of the Virgins after the start.
Narain's performance was rather poor - his FL was nearly 3 seconds slower than Tonio's, and his car broke down quite early in the race.
Liuzzi did a great job keeping himself on track for 46 laps, outperforming both Williams, Trulli, D'Ambrosio, Perez and... oh well, Karthikeyan.
Let's hope for more progress in China

Aaaaaaand... I hope that their aerodynamic tunnel deal will actually be money well spent.

Pointrox wrote:Narain's performance was rather poor - his FL was nearly 3 seconds slower than Tonio's, and his car broke down quite early in the race.

That does explain it?

Myrvold wrote:That does explain it?

It does, actually

Myrvold wrote:

Pointrox wrote:Narain's performance was rather poor - his FL was nearly 3 seconds slower than Tonio's, and his car broke down quite early in the race.

That does explain it?

Yes, with no refuelling the driver with early retirement has usually much slower individual FL than the others.

HOORAY!

AndreaModa wrote:I find it hard to believe that Liuzzi lasted almost 50 laps! Some much needed running for them though which I imagine will be incredibly useful as the season goes on. Pace-wise they're well off the Virgins, Liuzzi was losing around half a second a lap at least to D'Ambrosio I think but maybe that will come with upgrades? As chief Virgin supporter I sincerely hope not!

No pre season testing, the first time the car has raced all year, still unsetup, poor reliability.

For all we know, he could've been taking it easy so as to not have a mechanical failure. Plus, the car still looks unsetup judging from the onboards.

HRT are bringing more upgrades to China, and even more to Spain!! In short, Virgin had better pull some seconds out of their ass or they'll be pushed to the back of the grid. Hell, maybe even Lotus might have to start worrying, as HRT gets more mileage, upgrades, and set up their car. Now with their own windtunnel, they will be able to develop the car over the season.

Geoff Willis > Nick Wirth

The reasoning for retirements, as a safety precaution. So they retired the cars simply due to some readings rather than something breaking, that doesn't happen often does it. Technically there weren't any problems, just hot water so in that respect surely they retired a healthy car

MaxZero wrote:The reasoning for retirements, as a safety precaution. So they retired the cars simply due to some readings rather than something breaking, that doesn't happen often does it. Technically there weren't any problems, just hot water so in that respect surely they retired a healthy car

The drivers still willingly stopped the cars - Narain stopped out on track when if there was no serious issue he'd have come round to the pits, if only to save himself the walk, while Liuzzi made two pit stops in quick succession. Either the team is going to great lengths to not get punished for inexplicably pulling their cars out midrace, I think it's safe to say they genuinely were worried, and couldn't risk a, expensive failure, as a spectacular engine detonation (Narain) or an off-track excursion (Tonio) could leave them facing trouble with getting replacement parts.

I think they will do Virgin but I don't think they will do Team Lotus unless they have a monumental balls up, It's great HRT have MGPs 2nd wind tunnel and stuff at Williams aswell upgrades planned as said but they will have to find a good few seconds to get TL considering they are only 0.5 away from the usual mid field.

Going to be a decent season then again with Virgin we did see last year with the upgrades they bought they were catching slowly

I just wish they were a little more organised. Then they'd look more professional and then they'd get more sponsors. They could, at the very least, sign Andy Soucek as a reserve driver to maybe tap into the Spanish market.

The wind tunnel deal will undoubtedly be a positive move, though.

One question: is Juan Villalonga still there?

BaconLettuceNinja wrote:I just wish they were a little more organised. Then they'd look more professional and then they'd get more sponsors. They could, at the very least, sign Andy Soucek as a reserve driver to maybe tap into the Spanish market.

The wind tunnel deal will undoubtedly be a positive move, though.

One question: is Juan Villalonga still there?

Not that Villalonga did an superb job...

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/90664

So, HRT are going into China very bullish indeed. Logically that is what comes next. After qualifying quite easily they now want to beat their rivals. I can imagine them on par with Virgin.

I now want to see what their expectations are if they beat Virgin. I can see Liuzzi and Kolles saying "Now we will focus on Lotus, then midfield, then points, podiums and in the last race a victory!!!"

DanielPT wrote:I now want to see what their expectations are if they beat Virgin. I can see Liuzzi and Kolles saying "Now we will focus on Lotus, then midfield, then points, podiums and in the last race a victory!!!"

I can't help but to think it would be extremely amusing if they actually did that and keep word every time. The faces of the F1 community would be the ultimate amusement.

Peter wrote:

AndreaModa wrote:I find it hard to believe that Liuzzi lasted almost 50 laps! Some much needed running for them though which I imagine will be incredibly useful as the season goes on. Pace-wise they're well off the Virgins, Liuzzi was losing around half a second a lap at least to D'Ambrosio I think but maybe that will come with upgrades? As chief Virgin supporter I sincerely hope not!

No pre season testing, the first time the car has raced all year, still unsetup, poor reliability.

For all we know, he could've been taking it easy so as to not have a mechanical failure. Plus, the car still looks unsetup judging from the onboards.

HRT are bringing more upgrades to China, and even more to Spain!! In short, Virgin had better pull some seconds out of their ass or they'll be pushed to the back of the grid. Hell, maybe even Lotus might have to start worrying, as HRT gets more mileage, upgrades, and set up their car. Now with their own windtunnel, they will be able to develop the car over the season.

Geoff Willis > Nick Wirth

It's encouraging to see that HRT are planning on bringing updates - though, given that it is clear that they could still get much more out of the car simply through set up work, isn't it a bit early to start bringing in updates? Personally, I'd have delayed the update until Turkey, and spent most of China simply getting as much mileage on the clock and getting more set up data - there is a three week gap between China and Turkey, so it would give you more time to analyse the data from the first few races and decide where to go from there.
Besides, given that they changed their gearboxes after Australia (as they were entitled to do without penalty), and didn't put an engine through three practise sessions and a race in Australia. With Pirelli increasing the tyre allocation from Malaysia onwards, they probably have a fair bit more mileage in their pockets to play with in China and they could do well to take advantage of that.

Mind you, I guess that HRT have had their hand forced a bit by the news that Wirth is currently working on an upgrade package for the Turkish GP; perhaps they are hoping that they could steal a bit of a march in Virgin Racing for a race if they get their upgrades in first? Team Lotus, too, are planning on bringing a major update for Turkey (a new diffuser and exhaust system), so in the shorter term at least they will probably still have a decent advantage over HRT.

mario wrote:

Peter wrote:

AndreaModa wrote:I find it hard to believe that Liuzzi lasted almost 50 laps! Some much needed running for them though which I imagine will be incredibly useful as the season goes on. Pace-wise they're well off the Virgins, Liuzzi was losing around half a second a lap at least to D'Ambrosio I think but maybe that will come with upgrades? As chief Virgin supporter I sincerely hope not!

No pre season testing, the first time the car has raced all year, still unsetup, poor reliability.

For all we know, he could've been taking it easy so as to not have a mechanical failure. Plus, the car still looks unsetup judging from the onboards.

HRT are bringing more upgrades to China, and even more to Spain!! In short, Virgin had better pull some seconds out of their ass or they'll be pushed to the back of the grid. Hell, maybe even Lotus might have to start worrying, as HRT gets more mileage, upgrades, and set up their car. Now with their own windtunnel, they will be able to develop the car over the season.

Geoff Willis > Nick Wirth

It's encouraging to see that HRT are planning on bringing updates - though, given that it is clear that they could still get much more out of the car simply through set up work, isn't it a bit early to start bringing in updates? Personally, I'd have delayed the update until Turkey, and spent most of China simply getting as much mileage on the clock and getting more set up data - there is a three week gap between China and Turkey, so it would give you more time to analyse the data from the first few races and decide where to go from there.
Besides, given that they changed their gearboxes after Australia (as they were entitled to do without penalty), and didn't put an engine through three practise sessions and a race in Australia. With Pirelli increasing the tyre allocation from Malaysia onwards, they probably have a fair bit more mileage in their pockets to play with in China and they could do well to take advantage of that.

Mind you, I guess that HRT have had their hand forced a bit by the news that Wirth is currently working on an upgrade package for the Turkish GP; perhaps they are hoping that they could steal a bit of a march in Virgin Racing for a race if they get their upgrades in first? Team Lotus, too, are planning on bringing a major update for Turkey (a new diffuser and exhaust system), so in the shorter term at least they will probably still have a decent advantage over HRT.

I think the upgrades they talk so much of are just things that should have originally been on the cars in the first place. So parts that didn't pass crash tests or were just unable to be put on the car at first for other reasons. We may not be seeing any major upgrades until mid season. I remember them saying they're bringing a significant upgrade to Spain. We'll have to wait and see for Lotus, but I think that unless Virgin can pull some seconds out of their upgrades, they will have HRT breathing down their neck.

a new engine cover without mini shark fin



Image (c) Hispania F1 Racing Team Facebook page

Ooo, interesting. I might actually get up and watch practice now to see it in action, looks kinda cool in plain white+red.

I'm curious about why they took the fin off. Wouldn't the fin aid in rear downforce and stability? Unless the cars downforce is too rear biased, I don't see why to remove it...

Humm... How will they paint the number now? It might ruin that stylish livery made by that Hollywood artist.

Regardless of the reason, I for one welcome any car without a sharkfin.
For all the great stuff Newey has innovated.. The shark fin MUST GO.

I really don't understand what it is with this general anti-shark fin movement. I don't see why it's ugly. In fact, IMO it's rather nice.

Jeroen Krautmeir wrote:I really don't understand what it is with this general anti-shark fin movement. I don't see why it's ugly. In fact, IMO it's rather nice.

Well, maybe it's an age thing. I grew up with F1-cars that had smooth, nice and round engine cowlings that created a nice, distinctive shape. To me majority of the sharkfin cars remind me of this:



compare it to this (for example) and you might see my point:

Well, that MP4/10 does look rather awful, so I understand you.

Perhaps the team has new sponsors coming on board, reason for the unpainted engine cover. Or its just not painted yet.

Will be staying up to see them outperform Virgin.

Also, does anyone, by any chance, know what the new upgrades are that are coming onto the car this weekend?

Peter wrote:Also, does anyone, by any chance, know what the new upgrades are that are coming onto the car this weekend?

Apparantly it's just the new engine cover and an updated rear wing - I'm sure we'll know for sure after we get some photos from Friday.

I'm not sure what Virgin was doing, but, what did I tell you? Liuzzi put in 1 lap, and that was faster than both Virgins. Narain proves himself as not being rubbish, instead pretty decent. Still there's almost a 2 second gap to Lotus.

Well Peter, I don't mean to say this as a bad thing, but looks like Liuzzi has a dose of Fisichellitis (or however the hell you spell it).

Jeroen Krautmeir wrote:Well Peter, I don't mean to say this as a bad thing, but looks like Liuzzi has a dose of Fisichellitis (or however the hell you spell it).

And a very severe case, at that.

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:

Jeroen Krautmeir wrote:Well Peter, I don't mean to say this as a bad thing, but looks like Liuzzi has a dose of Fisichellitis (or however the hell you spell it).

And a very severe case, at that.

Why? He wasn't great at Toro Rosso, and he wasn't great at Force India either.

Phoenix wrote:

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:

Jeroen Krautmeir wrote:Well Peter, I don't mean to say this as a bad thing, but looks like Liuzzi has a dose of Fisichellitis (or however the hell you spell it).

And a very severe case, at that.

Why? He wasn't great at Toro Rosso, and he wasn't great at Force India either.

I think he means a really acute case. One in which the subject isn't great even in the midfield. He only surpasses himself at the back of the grid.

DanielPT wrote:
I think he means a really acute case. One in which the subject isn't great even in the midfield. He only surpasses himself at the back of the grid.

But that's not fisichellitis, that's a mild case of rejectfulness.

Both HRT ahead of Virgins (and by a respectable margin) on FP2!!!!!



F*** yeah!!!

Phoenix wrote:

DanielPT wrote:
I think he means a really acute case. One in which the subject isn't great even in the midfield. He only surpasses himself at the back of the grid.

But that's not fisichellitis, that's a mild case of rejectfulness.

Well, Fisichellaitis is just a mild form of rejectfulness in and of itself.

Popi_Larrauri wrote:Both HRT ahead of Virgins (and by a respectable margin) on FP2!!!!!



F*** yeah!!!

Unfortunately, they couldn't replicate that form today - both of the Virgin Racing drivers were pretty comfortably ahead of them in the end (Glock's half a second ahead of Liuzzi, and D'Ambrosio - surprisingly - is another six tenths further up the road).

Still, just getting to the end of the race tomorrow will be in itself an achievement - if they can rack up the mileage this weekend, it will help them out a lot with reliability testing and set up development. If they can at least keep going until the end of the race, they might even finish in a half decent position - there is a reasonably high probability of a safety car during the race, and always the chance that attrition could whittle down the field.

I am actually please in the way this HRT car is turning out. At least it qualifies so that is a good thing. They are still lacking the pace to beat the Virgins but they will eventually get there. It certainly looks like a modern F1 car!