HRT: Liuzzi beats Karthikeyan despite penalty

26 comments on “HRT: Liuzzi beats Karthikeyan despite penalty”

1. 

   GeeMac (@geemac)
   18th April 2011, 11:56

   A positive weekend from HRT. Good milage for the “new” car and both of them managed to finish. If I was MVR, I’d be shaking in my boots…the team with no money, a geriatric car and 1 sponsor are coming to get you!
   1. 

      AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
      18th April 2011, 13:35

      Exactly my sentiments. They have alot to be proud of and Virgin surely are looking over their shoulder more and more.
2. 

   Todfod (@todfod)
   18th April 2011, 11:56

   I didn’t know it was possible to run a one stop strategy in this race, so hats off to Narain for trying. But if you look at his lap times, Narain seems way too inconsistent in the second stint. Finishing behind Liuzzi after he had a drive though penalty is kind of embarrassing, but then again we kind of expected Narain to be a bit of an embarrassment anyways.
   1. 

      BasCB (@bascb)
      18th April 2011, 12:02

      I guess large part of the reason for the big time differences are being passed by other cars.
   2. 

      SirCoolbeans (@sircoolbeans)
      18th April 2011, 12:02

      The back markers lap times are always inconsistent though as they tend to get lapped and finding themselves needing to pull over all the time.

      If you look at the earlier laps before they get caught by the front runners their times are far more consistent.
   3. 

      slr
      18th April 2011, 12:03

      I wouldn’t say Karthikeyan should feel embarrased. Keeping Liuzzi behind with the state his tyres were in, would have been would have been very difficult for anyone.
   4. 

      ron
      18th April 2011, 12:54

      @Todfod please see the graph for your reference mate he was on par with luizzi until luizzi made his last pit stop on lap 46 for set of soft tyre.
      narain changed to hard tyre’s on lap 24 he ran 30 lap on hard tyre’s naturally his tyre’s would have been dead at penultimate laps of race ,i think u can understand that there will be massive speed difference between a set of fresh soft tyre and worn set of hard tyre.
      And before declaring narain as ’embarrassment’ he is improving, he was 1.3 slower in Australia than luizzi in qualifying and brought down gap to 2 tenth in china.
      don’t forget this is guy who hasn’t race in f1 for last 5 years and this was first race he completed after 5 years
   5. 

      Subaru_600BHP
      18th April 2011, 13:16

      people who call other drivers an embarrassment don’t seem to have a clue about motor racing, there are so many factors involved, in fact someone who has never even driven in any sort of motor race let alone a GP is not in the best position to judge.
3. 

   BasCB (@bascb)
   18th April 2011, 11:58

   Interesting they went for a 1 stopper at first. Does it save money not to change the tyres (air usage, wear on the guns, disk wear) or is the team feeling it’s not worth it?
   1. 

      Himmat S.
      18th April 2011, 12:20

      Just trying different strategies. So next time they will know. When they become better.
   2. 

      Mr draw
      18th April 2011, 15:34

      Like all slow cars, the hrt looks tyre-friendly. Karthikeyan’s fastest lap-times in this second stint are 1:46 during almost the entire stint. So at least the tyres didn’t reach the “cliff” in that 30-lap period. So maybe the hrt can do with one pitstop less.
4. 

   Ahmad
   18th April 2011, 11:59

   Don’t know why the smaller teams keep going for longer stints, it’s quicker to pit more.
   1. 

      Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
      18th April 2011, 12:04

      They’re probably trying to spend less time getting lapped, which costs a lot of time because of the blue flags.

      Look out for Glock’s quote in the Virgin review which is going up any minute now…
      1. 

         bosyber (@bosyber)
         18th April 2011, 21:11

         Ah, that sounds interesting, will go look why Glock feels he didn’t use right strategy, the same as the winner.
5. 

   box this lap (@sebashuis)
   18th April 2011, 12:44

   Ah! so HRT was really in China? I thought I saw a glimpse of them when Hamilton and Vettel were overtaking some backmarkers nothing else.

   Its a poor situation really HRT have been on the screen for about 2 seconds. If this is happening all the time the “cool spot” will not be “hot” any time soon.
6. 

   Ewan
   18th April 2011, 13:12

   The lack of stops by both HRT cars seems slightly odd, either they’re simply not fast enough to damage their tyres, or they’re being daft?

   Karthikeyan’s car is doing 108 second laps in the first couple of laps, and 106’s at the end, after all the fuel’s burnt off, but after his only stop, he’s doing 106’s with plenty of fuel still in.

   When Liuzzi is putting in 103 second laps at the end, it seems like Karthikeyan is losing 3 seconds a lap to the tyres (or to being a bit rubbish for F1…).
   1. 

      Oliver
      18th April 2011, 13:32

      Webber was almost 2 seconds faster than Vettel towards the end of the race. Does that also imply that Vettel is rubbish?
      1. 

         Fixy (@)
         18th April 2011, 14:35

         But Karthikeyan really is rubbish against Liuzzi (and against anyone else).
         1. 

            ron
            18th April 2011, 15:03

            come on fixy narain was just 0.2 sec off luizzi in qualifing at china
            1. 

               ron
               18th April 2011, 15:11

               just compare the graph in page fixy you will see he was matching pace of liuzzi until liuzzi stopped for set of soft tyre at lap 46 and narain was already had done more than 20 lap on hard tyre and it was only at last lap that liuzzi was able to pass narain so your analysis does not hold any ground
7. 

   Fixy (@)
   18th April 2011, 14:10

   A drive-through penalty failed to stop Vitantonio Liuzzi from beating his team mate again in China.

   This is class.
8. 

   Neusalz (@dpod)
   18th April 2011, 14:19

   I dont think Narain is that bad. I can see him as a decent reserve driver after this season.
9. 

   DaveW
   18th April 2011, 15:57

   That’ll teach HRT not to open any more emails from Virgin. Interesting to hear that the common ECU is susceptible to “corrupt” software. Maybe Mark Webber’s car needs a scan too.
10. 

    TdM
    18th April 2011, 15:58

    I don’t think you can blame him for this, fresh softs at the end would let anyone rip up the time sheets.

    His graph looks quite good for a back marker. I suspect Liuzzi got a bit of clear air after his stop especially with the extra pace and Narain is having to let people through with his crippled tires.
11. 

    bosyber (@bosyber)
    18th April 2011, 21:15

    I think they both look to have pretty nicely consistent and similar speeds; the fact that the 1 stopper by Karthikeyan kept him at the same pace until the end tells us that they at least keep their tyres pretty well; Liuzzi made the difference seemingly after his last tyre stop for softs.
12. 

    Stefanauss (@stefanauss)
    18th April 2011, 21:24

    Can’t believe HRT didn’t have a checksum in place for onboard software files. I wonder if that’s the case in the other teams as well.

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