HRT 2012

[Trocola]

Caixa Catalunya does not exist anymore. Now it is Catalunya Caixa and is near bankrupcy, so it's hard to believe that they could put money on this team.

From Catalunya, it qould be interesting to see Gas Natural, Mango or Repsol.

One think i don't know is why Inditex (Zara, Massimo Dutti) has never put any money on Spanish sponsorship, being Amancio Ortega the richest man in Spain


Trocola

[Gridlock]

They have more sponsors on the side pod undercut than on the whole car last year...

TBH I was looking for a technical angle when I noticed that, but got nothing. Even the panel gaps are fairly scary.

[PNSD]

It's got to be said...

The team have two major deadlines to meet, 1) To have completed all crash tests before January, and 2) The first (or second!) test session.

These aims should have, and would have been set out a long time ago, so why on earth the team was running round the pit lane asking GP2 teams for bolts is staggering.

You are either here to compete, or here to take up space. It is completely unacceptable that the cars first real laps will come in FP1. It's a joke. The deadline for attending the 1st, 2nd or 3rd test were known a long time ago! Why not aim for the 1st test to give a few weeks of leeway of maybe missing the 1st, or 2nd?!

Honestly, it's about time this team took it seriously, this is not the early 90's anymore. This is meant to be a fully fledged F1 out fit. All this counts for Marussia too. This is their 3rd attempt and the improvement is minimal. Contrast that to Caterham! Sure, Caterham have more funding, but thats the point. If you can't do F1 properly, why bother at all?

All im saying is, it's about time they took a serious effort at this or went home. Just making a filming day is not serious!

Is anything that I've unreasonable?

[element]

I don't agree on most of what you said. HRT is rebuilding the team after new owners with new headquarters relocation, 80% new staff, while yet trying to have a better car and better team base. If the team does not meet the deadlines next year I'll be disappointed too, but to me they did a great effort so far.

As far as why being in F1 while in this situation, is what I completely disagree with you, this is to me the most important thing, they are doing the serious effort, and they have passion for it. I like the underdog, yes, hell yeah, it's easy to buy an existing team and put millions on it, but I respect those who start from scratch and evolve not being afraid of being criticized.

[dice782]

I don't agree on most of what you said. HRT is rebuilding the team after new owners with new headquarters relocation, 80% new staff, while yet trying to have a better car and better team base. If the team does not meet the deadlines next year I'll be disappointed too, but to me they did a great effort so far.

As far as why being in F1 while in this situation, is what I completely disagree with you, this is to me the most important thing, they are doing the serious effort, and they have passion for it. I like the underdog, yes, hell yeah, it's easy to buy an existing team and put millions on it, but I respect those who start from scratch and evolve not being afraid of being criticized.

Yes I also agree with you, they are doing a great job, and with Virgin HRT really belong in F1. Other Teams have had loads of funding in the past, So does this make them look like they take F1 seriously ?? Every one talks about how much funding a team gets but no one ever speaks about how much they owe how much they will eventually need to payback. There is only a certain amount of time an organisation can go around splashing their cash but When debts start mounting up then we will see how the hard they fall. HRT can fail but it doesn't mean the others are any safer.

The reason why HRT and Virgin are here on small budgets are because big well funded teams have failed/left F1 because what they did was not sustainable over a long period of time.

So HRT missed a deadline, deadline slippage is pretty common in large scale projects with tight timescales and at least the Team took this in to account. That's why they wont be missing the race in Melbourne

[Spencifer_Murphy]

the nose in particular (from profile) seems to have a much more gentle step than the Mercedes or Caterham for example.

The car does not have a step nose. Whereas the Merc and Caterham do. The only other car wihout a step, is the McLaren!

Thanks for the condescending reply complete with exclamation mark at how "stupid" my observation was and the "wtf" smiley's in response to cbbcisace who appeared to share my initial belief, very polite and constructive. Cheers!

HOWEVER, had you read my post properly (funny seeing as you quoted it yourself) you'd have notice I said:

the nose in particular (from profile) seems to have a much more gentle step than the Mercedes or Caterham for example.

"from profile"...meaning from the side. If you didn't realise that then please accept my apologies, but still the condescending nature of your response was hardly warranted.

At the time of making my post the images of the car from the front were - to me - inconclusive due to the white livery and the lack of contrast in that area of the car. I don't go shooting down people in an attempt to embarrass people if they've spotted something I disagree with (see: the vanishing pullrod on the F2012 thread), and I don't expect it to be done to me.

On another aspect of the car - I don't understand why this livery causes such "controversy" (for want of a better word) its just white with some burgundy and gold trim. It's not like its shocking pink or electric blue. It may well be bland, but its not exactly hideous. Is it? (just my opinion of course.)

[donskar]

It's got to be said...

The team have two major deadlines to meet, 1) To have completed all crash tests before January, and 2) The first (or second!) test session.

These aims should have, and would have been set out a long time ago, so why on earth the team was running round the pit lane asking GP2 teams for bolts is staggering.

You are either here to compete, or here to take up space. It is completely unacceptable that the cars first real laps will come in FP1. It's a joke. The deadline for attending the 1st, 2nd or 3rd test were known a long time ago! Why not aim for the 1st test to give a few weeks of leeway of maybe missing the 1st, or 2nd?!

Honestly, it's about time this team took it seriously, this is not the early 90's anymore. This is meant to be a fully fledged F1 out fit. All this counts for Marussia too. This is their 3rd attempt and the improvement is minimal. Contrast that to Caterham! Sure, Caterham have more funding, but thats the point. If you can't do F1 properly, why bother at all?

All im saying is, it's about time they took a serious effort at this or went home. Just making a filming day is not serious!

Is anything that I've unreasonable?

Harsh, but not unreasonable. F1 is the pinnacle. It's not for everyone. Some teams and individuals just aren't good enough.

[cbbcisace]

It also relates to the MGU installation which has its take off from the front of the crankshaft.
My take is that HRT will need to have KERS ready for the Mugello test prior to the start of the European races.
HRT need to solve off track issues like appointmenting an experience TD to troubleshoot the new car issues.

I believe they want to appoint Gabriele Tredozi, he worked with Luis Perez Sala before and I think he worked for STR.

EDIT: I think Pedro mentioned that the Mugello test will focus on any new updates plus KERS.

[marcush.]

HRT has realistically only one aim:beating Virgin ,errm Marussia ,or maybe even just stay in business.To dedicate any recources towards KERS would be just stupid.
You need to crawl before trying to walk and tackling KERS would be a try at flying or something.they just don´t have the recourcesand will have their hands full getting the cars ready and reliable as they are..maintaining the gap would be a huge achievement in my view.they need to find finance that is their priority

[cbbcisace]

Marcush, fully agree with you, HRT obviously see some kind of benefit for the system to be on the F112, guess we will see soon..

[marcush.]

remember even RedBull struggled last year with it..
You may say just charge it and use it for the start...but then at the back you rarely need a god start or even can make full use of what is avaialable come first corner..I rememenber one Adrian Sutil taking almost a full season to learn how to drive slow enough to make the first lap...
I don´t see the benefit of destracting yourself with something that will not lift you .would it help getting ahead of Marussia who will not have it? HRT was beating them already ,see no sign of major improvement ,in fact they managed to get their car later out than HRT for the first time....

[dice782]

remember even RedBull struggled last year with it..
You may say just charge it and use it for the start...but then at the back you rarely need a god start or even can make full use of what is avaialable come first corner..I rememenber one Adrian Sutil taking almost a full season to learn how to drive slow enough to make the first lap...
I don´t see the benefit of destracting yourself with something that will not lift you .would it help getting ahead of Marussia who will not have it? HRT was beating them already ,see no sign of major improvement ,in fact they managed to get their car later out than HRT for the first time....

Yes Redbull did struggle and they have way more resources, I am more worried that HRT wont be as reliable as last year with the 80% new staff and very little time working together. Since HRT finished their car before Marussia and seem to have slight/perceived advantage this season, I hope the team don't take any little thing for granted as we might see the tables turn and Marussia finishing the season in front of HRT.

[cbbcisace]

No Nose cone on the car

Its Dani Clos...

[dice782]

No Nose cone on the car

Its Dani Clos...

He doesn't look like him to me

[Trocola]

I can't wait to see the new cars around Melbourne tomorrow night... it's a shame that it would be at 3 AM here in spain... i will have to wait until friday afternoon to see the practices.

And I can't wait to see De la Rosa on the wheel again. It's good to see the new F112 being built at the moment, not at saturday practice .

BTW, no news about Banco Popular... that's a bad sign...


Trocola