HRT say they will not run their car in the final day of the F1 test at Barcelona.
A spokesperson told F1 Fanatic: “We have covered our program today, so we are not driving tomorrow.”
HRT have run three different drivers during the test: Narain Karthikeyan, Vitantonio Liuzzi and Giorgio Mondini.
The team planned to run their new F111 at the next test in Bahrain. But there are doubts over whether that test will go ahead.
2011 F1 testing
- Young Drivers Test Day 3 in pictures
- Vergne completes third day on top in Abu Dhabi
- Young Drivers Test Day 2 in pictures
- Vergne stays quickest on second day of test
- Italian F3 pair complete Ferrari test
- Jean-Eric Vergne leads first day of young drivers test
- McLaren cover least test distance with new car
- Rosberg: Mercedes are “on the up”
- Second Barcelona test day 5 in pictures
- Hamilton: reliability and pace concerns for McLaren
Image ?? Motioncompany
Kate
20th February 2011, 16:15
Any way to save costs eh…..
Sangeen Khan
20th February 2011, 16:48
Or some extra time in the wind tunnel?
BasCB (@bascb)
20th February 2011, 18:31
Sure. After all, they have done some 6 days of testing with their old car now. Not much new to learn from running it, is there.
I think they might not even have joined in this test if not for the latest spec tyres and the opportunity to run Liuzzi and this Mondini guy (why Montermini is springing up in my mind?)
US_Peter (@us_peter)
20th February 2011, 21:28
Yeah, at a certain point continued running of last year’s car becomes irrelevant. I’m sure they’d be testing if they had their new car.
Mike
20th February 2011, 21:44
Montermini! WOOOO!!!
anyway… I agree.
For once though I will criticise HRT, maybe not so many people would call your team rubbish if you actually TOLD THEM WHY you do things…
GeeMac (@geemac)
20th February 2011, 16:18
“We completed our programme today, and we didn’t expect to do that, so we haven’t got anything planned for tomorrow and therefor won’t run.”
Come on HRT, one minute you seem like serious F1 team, and the next you are back to your ramshackle ways, its just not good enough at this level!
GeeMac (@geemac)
20th February 2011, 16:18
I read between the lines a wee bit obviously… :)
snowman
20th February 2011, 16:22
Agree they are embarrassment to Formula 1. If all the teams were acting like HRT just imagine what kind of joke the whole thing would be.
sw6569 (@sw6569)
20th February 2011, 19:43
absolutely. They are no Minardi, they are instead simply an embarrassment.
RaulZ
21st February 2011, 10:57
Well, they came to Formula 1 because someone said that 40 millions were enough. They were cheated.
These are the new teams Ecclestone and Moxley wanted, just cars to fill. And that’s what they get. Teams without money.
Saying that they are embarrassment to Formula 1 is just unfair.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
20th February 2011, 20:13
Nailed it.
snowman
21st February 2011, 12:57
Can’t remember what promises were made over what they needed. Fair enough if they were told that, its just that the other new teams have their act together and we have HRT going grave digging for drivers and still haven’t got their lineup confirmed or 2011 car ready. But admit do like them about cause it’s good to have a comedy side of F1 and if they did make progress up the grid it would be inspiring!
Ned Flanders (@ned-flanders)
20th February 2011, 16:19
Hahaha. Couldn’t they have at least came up with a more inventive excuse?
BBT
20th February 2011, 16:21
Like?
“Drivers are needed in the factory to cobble together the new car”
Hairs (@hairs)
20th February 2011, 16:46
“We completed our program”
> The Power Mac G4 finished rendering the next 3 picture of our “new” car.
Icthyes (@icthyes)
20th February 2011, 19:48
Yamamoto has food poisoning, oh wait
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
20th February 2011, 19:51
“there’s a great restaurant at Madrid, so we’re not driving here tomorrow”
NickTheGeek
20th February 2011, 16:20
that says allot, every other team in the pit lane would do tyre work or something. I used to be sympathetic when people bash hrt but to be honest they are just a waste of a grid slot.
silencer
20th February 2011, 16:28
I believe Kolles must have found holy grail of speed somewhere in barcelona that can be fitted in their F111 car, so they just pack up and go home…
BasCB (@bascb)
20th February 2011, 18:32
They need to hide their real speed from us. Shame they did that all season.
Shimks
20th February 2011, 16:33
If you are in the F1 season, you should be obligated to run a certain number of test days.
It doesn’t look to me like they’re going to make it to the end of the season, cash-wise. What a shame.
Daniel
20th February 2011, 21:48
Ok, which car do you mean though? This year’s or last year’s? Because they only have the old car at the moment. Which you’ll recall was the slowest car last year. How much more do you think they can learn from running that?
Peter
21st February 2011, 15:04
I don’t think they’ll make it to the European leg… They’ll show up in Australia with the old car, and then go belly up. Sad ut true.
Fixy (@)
20th February 2011, 16:38
What kind of an excuse is this?
Todfod (@todfod)
20th February 2011, 18:22
What kind of an excuse is this?Hahahaha.. I would love to tell my boss - "Ive finished my work for today, so looks like I'm not going to come in to work tomorrow."
Daniel
20th February 2011, 21:50
And if s/he could say, good I’ll save on paying you for tomorrow then, it might work out for both of you.
Master firelee (@master-firelee)
20th February 2011, 16:39
I wonder if we will actauly see the real version of the f111
sam3110 (@sam3110)
20th February 2011, 16:42
Hahahaha so you have ‘completed your program’ how about you decide to do more mileage to work out setups so you actually have a chance of being within the 107 rule?
BasCB (@bascb)
20th February 2011, 18:33
Not likely they will be running with the 2010 car in the 2011 season though.
Sangeen Khan
20th February 2011, 16:47
Hahaha..I love HRT..Enigmatic Maniacs..Seriously,we need them in Formula1..Wish them all the best..
slr
20th February 2011, 16:54
Why can’t Kolles just face the reality and admit that everything is not okay in the team. He tries to make HRT look as good as any other team, but instead he makes himself and the team look even worse.
Dev
20th February 2011, 17:04
they are saving the fuel & tires!! bravo!!!
lolz
20th February 2011, 17:09
No doubt HRT is the weakest team,but those who are laughing why don’t they buy their own team and outapace the redbulls and ferraris
Todfod (@todfod)
20th February 2011, 18:26
Its not about outpacing the Red Bulls and Ferrari’s. Minardi, Toro Rosso, Super Aguri, etc were never quicker than the RBs and Ferraris, but they took the sport seriously and worked hard. They were respectable.. and HRT is not. So I think we are all entitled to laugh at them.
Shimks
20th February 2011, 17:12
HRT, if they are really struggling for cash to the point where they will have to close down, they should make themselves the People’s Choice and somehow open themselves up to donation-based funding.
There a millions of F1 fans out there. Many of us support the under-dogs. Personally, I wouldn’t mind throwing a fiver their way.
I am sure their problems are not due to a lack of commitment. Everyone in that team will be working as hard as in the big teams. But F1 is a very expensive business.
I’m still glad they got their chance. It was a shame Bernie didn’t put a 13th team on the grid this year. I don’t mind the controversy of a fledgling company failing. At least they give it a go. That’s always something to learn from and look back on. Just so long as the small teams aren’t dangerous to everyone else on the track.
Shimks
20th February 2011, 19:14
I was really hoping people here would get excited about my The People’s Team idea.
No-one? :(
ivz
20th February 2011, 21:28
Great idea! Imagine the “F1 Fanatic HRT”? If we had enough members and all paid a yearly fee?
Luis
21st February 2011, 0:27
That would be brilliant!
What about something like ‘one million dollar HRT’ (inspired on http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/) with a livery displaying all sponsors?
Peter
21st February 2011, 15:09
Yes, very! That would be cool! However, Williams is set on that path, being floated on the stock exchange and all, maybe we should all chip in and become partner to Sir Frank?
Victor.
20th February 2011, 17:23
This is hilarious :D
TFLB
20th February 2011, 17:31
It’s ridiculous how everyone criticizes HRT, no matter what the team do or say. Why does everyone assume that they know more than the team themselves? If they have covered their programme, they have no reason to run tomorrow. It would just be a waste of money.
DavidS (@davids)
20th February 2011, 18:04
Everyone criticises HRT because they frequently do dodgy stuff like this.
Firstly, unless they happen to have stumbled upon an utterly dominant car that’ll win every single race this year, they need to do more testing. To say that they have completed their program already indicates that they didn’t bring enough to do, their goals aren’t particularly high, and they don’t have that drive to achieve results that should be a feature in all racing teams.
Patting yourself on the back when you are the slowest car on the grid is a sign of a deeply troubled team.
TFLB
20th February 2011, 20:10
It’s the old car, so they had plenty of time to test everything they needed last year. If it were the new car they were testing, I would agree with you.
Randy
20th February 2011, 20:21
Even if the car is last years the drivers could certainly benefit from the mileage. Not knocking the team but this has to be viewed as a financial decision.
TFLB
20th February 2011, 21:50
I never said it wasn’t financial. I just don’t think it’s a sign of impending doom for the team.
taurus
20th February 2011, 17:34
I dont get all this small team bashing, Minardi fiddled around at the back for 20-odd years and never got the amount of stick Hispania are getting. If they manage to score a point this year everyone will go “wow, well done Hispania, how great the little team managed to score a point, etc etc”.
Plus they beat Virgin last year (sort of).
TFLB
20th February 2011, 18:02
Probably the reason for Minardi not getting as much stick is that for the first years of their existence the internet was not really widespread or well developed, so there were no sites like this where people could share their bashing with the world.
GeeMac (@geemac)
20th February 2011, 18:48
The point with Minardi was that they were actually dogged lower midfield runners and as other teams (Larousse, Scuderia Italia, Simtek, Forti, Coloni et al) fell by the wayside they still managed to carry on regardless. They ran their team on an absolute shoestring and turned up at every race and test for the joy of competing in F1. I am as die hard an HRT/Independent Team fan as you will ever see, but I get the sense that the management of HRT just can’t be bothered anymore and are just looking to palm the team off to someone else.
Minardi were never like that…they were racers above all else.
HRT NEED to work on the car tomorrow to ensure they stay ahead of Virgin and stay within 107%, and while they are relaxing tomorrow Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari will be improving their cars and moving that 107% mark ever so slightly further away…
Shimks
20th February 2011, 19:12
That’s a very good point about the 107% margin shifting ever further away.
JUGNU
20th February 2011, 17:34
Worrying signs. Seems like they are disappearing.
JUGNU
Sangeen Khan
20th February 2011, 18:01
Never in the history of Formula1 have we seen a team as prepared for the new season as HRT
Tiomkin
20th February 2011, 19:45
HRT will most probably not do any real racing. The 107% will keep them in the garage. So what is the point in wasting money circling the drain?
Todfod (@todfod)
20th February 2011, 20:10
Whats the point in participating in F1 then? They should just pack their bags and leave
Tiomkin
20th February 2011, 21:05
Ask the idiots who reintroduced the 107% rule. It is designed to stop the lesser teams racing or improving.
Bookgrub
20th February 2011, 23:33
No, it’s designed to stop teams who aren’t competitive from running around the track pointlessly.
The good news for teams like HRT is that they generally have a lot more ‘low hanging fruit’ available from their aero and mechanical packages. If they can get close to 107% early on, they should be able to close the gap a reasonable amount.
People forget what a huge gap 7% can be. Spa Francorchamps, for example, has a lap record of 107.263 seconds on the modern layout. 7% of that is 7.51 seconds. That’s an absolutely massive gap, and I don’t think any modern team will have serious difficulty getting that close.
wasiF1 (@wasif1)
21st February 2011, 1:09
They are making things even worst for themselves.
Oliver
21st February 2011, 7:00
Their plan was to evaluate two drivers which they have accoplished.
At a certain point it is of no benefit to test an old car, built to a different regulation, with new tyres that will operform differently when the car is changed.
Darren
21st February 2011, 9:58
There has always been a culture of bashing the little guys in F1. Everyone in HRT have the same passion for f1 as anyone in the big teams, they probably work even harder with limited facilities and resources.
Here’s an idea, lets just ban every team except Ferrari, Red Bull,Renault and McLaren coz those teams are cool and have lots of money.
Lets make fun of the small teams with no sponsors until they disapear! Let’s admit it Williams are on the way out dont support them. All the new teams are just fly-by-nighters so forget them!
I’m here to support F1, if I wanted to read everything negative and every scandal and every conspiracy theory I’d go to Pitpass.com.
Todfod (@todfod)
21st February 2011, 11:41
A lot of us here support the underdog. I always liked Minardi for its effort and spirit, and have been a supporter of Force India right from day one. Toro Rosso taking a race win in 2008 was definitely the highlight of they year for me.
HRT on the other hand doesn’t show any promise. If you are entering the pinnacle of motorsport, you have to ensure you get into it with a plan. HRT didn’t organise their funding, direction, future plans, driver lineups, car design, testing schedules etc. Ive only been watching F1 for a short period of time (94 season onwards), and I haven’t seen a team more disorganised and clueless than HRT.
So I hope you understand why everyone doesn’t support HRT with the same enthusiasm as you do.
Gty
22nd February 2011, 3:09
I might have missed it but why are the running an old livery?