GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: Dare on March 04, 2010, 02:49:13 PM
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At the bottom we can learn what Hispania means according
to HRT owner and chairman Carabante
March 4, 2010
Karun Chandhok will make his F1 debut with HRT © Hispania F1 Related LinksProfiles:Karun Chandhok | Bruno Senna Teams:Hispania Indian driver Karun Chandhok has been announced as a race driver for the HRT Formula One Team, ahead of its livery and team launch on Thursday.
HRT was confirmed on the FIA's official entry list on Wednesday, but its management waited until Thursday before confirming Chandhok as a driver. Chandhok has raced in GP2 for the past three years, where his best overall finish was tenth. He will join fellow rookie and ex-GP2 team-mate Bruno Senna at the Murica-based outfit, which will turn up at the first race in Bahrain with an untested Dallara-built car and Cosworth engine.
"I am very pleased to use the Murcia site to officially unveil our car livery today," said team principal Colin Kolles. "We also complete the driver's team line-up with the Indian Karun Chandhok at the wheel of the car for our first ever season.
"We have been very impressed with Karun's performance in GP2. India is a great country. It will be great for the sport to have an Indian driver on the grid for the first Indian Grand Prix [scheduled for 2011]. Everything is now in place after an impossible race against time to register the team's name and I truly believe that we have an excellent platform to build on and move forward for a strong 2010 performance. Now we need to work together. We need to learn together and keep developing as a team."
HRT's owner and chairman Jose Ramon Carabante outlined the reasons behind the new team name, which was officially changed from Campos Meta1 this week.
"The name of the team contains the word Hispania, which is not only the name of one of my companies, but Hispania was also the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula. That reflects our team's new identity. 2010 will be a major debut for the team and drivers at the wheel of our HRT F1 Team car."
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I am not surprise with the type of drivers that Hispania F1 is signing. Is it really talent or the sponsors that determined the selection? The fact that his best overall finish was tenth place speak clearly about his talent. I will not be surprise to see frequent DNF for the 2 cars or complete the race 3 laps behind. :fool:
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I am not surprise with the type of drivers that Hispania F1 is signing. Is it really talent or the sponsors that determined the selection? The fact that his best overall finish was tenth place speak clearly about his talent. I will not be surprise to see frequent DNF for the 2 cars or complete the race 3 laps behind. :fool:
Maybe he's the best driver willing to drive for a team that is bound to be last place. While there is a history of drivers from small teams graduating to the big teams... there isn't much recently. Vettel came through the Red Bull development programme. Hamilton jumped right into McLaren. How many other young drivers... with success... are there right now? (Even the drivers with real promise are at the bigger teams - Kobayashi, Rosberg, Hulkenberg and Kubica)
The list of promising drivers ground up and spit out of F1 by back marker teams is growing, and there might be some people who refuse to sell their souls for such a small prize. If they're good, they'll wait for an opening where they can prove themselves.
Once Hispania/Lotus/Virgin(/Renault/'BMW') show that they are serious competitors, they will be able to attract more talent.
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The list of promising drivers ground up and spit out of F1 by back marker teams is growing, and there might be some people who refuse to sell their souls for such a small prize. If they're good, they'll wait for an opening where they can prove themselves.
I'm not sure that more inexperienced, or as you put it promising, drivers are being churned by teams. It has always been a very tough route to the good drives in F1 and some luck is usually needed at some point. Sometimes drivers have been required to fill dead mens shoes in order to be in a winning situation, thankfully this is no longer the case but it does illustrate how much harder it has become to get to the few top seats
The other point must be on whose judgement is a driver classed as promising, many drivers come to F1 with outstanding records in other racing series only to disappoint. This again is not a new issue there are very many drivers over the decades who failed to make the grade in the rarified atmosphere that is F1.
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John makes valid points there. It is impossible to judge a driver from his experience in other forms of racing. If we did that, we would write of Kobayashi completely after two consecutive 16 place final positions in the GP2 feeder series. But we know from experience that he looked good in his two F1 outings to date, indeed far better than his previous form would have suggested.
Conversely Sebastien Bourdais looked like he would be made for F1, having dominated Champcar, performed well in his 24 Hours of Le Mans races and done well in lower European forumlae. But look how he turned out!
Whilst I doubt most of the rookies on the grid this year (indeed so far only Hulkenberg appears to have the credentials to make it), you can never tell how they'll cope in the F1 environment.
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Kamui Kobayashi stands out as the opposite extreme - his record in GP2 was not much better than Karun's is, yet he made a splash (largely but not entirely for the right reasons) when he substituted for Timo Glock.
What I don't like is that neither Hispania driver has a mile of F1 racing experience between them. Both of them are there for commercial reasons (though only one is, technically speaking, confirmed to be a pay-driver at this point) and I can see them not making as much progress as they should, thus having their careers spoiled by poor circumstances. They needed someone with some experience in the other seat, which should have been easy - if nothing else, Kazuki Nakajima can't race for Stefan GP and would surely have been prepared to race anything simply to be on the F1 grid next weekend.