Karthikeyan gets HRT seat

ro_chez

http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/250102/karthikeyan-springs-surprise-with-hrt-deal/

"Narain Karthikeyan will make his F1 comeback next season following news that he has inked a deal to race with Hispania. The Indian, who last competed at the top level back in 2005 with Jordan and who tested for Williams in 2006 and 2007, confirmed the development via Twitter.

“[I’m] back in F1 in 2011,” he wrote. “[I’ve] signed a deal to race for HRT. I’ve always maintained that my time in F1 was not over and now I’m making good on that promise.

“I’ve worked really hard to come back to F1 and it will be a dream come true to race in front of my home crowd in the Indian GP in October.

“I’m looking forward to the Indian public spurring me on with their blessings and good wishes. [I will be] ramping up my fitness regime now - big time. I see plenty of hours in the gym in the near future.”

Speaking to The Times of India, he added: "It has been a while in the making, but I am delighted to be racing again in Formula 1 in 2011.

“I am confident that I have the pace, the fitness and the will to succeed. I am extremely grateful to the Tata Group, without whose unwavering support, this comeback would not have been possible.

"I'm looking forward to racing for HRT, and to working again with Dr Colin Kolles [Team Principal at HRT]. We have a long standing and excellent working relationship together.”

During his time in the F1 wilderness, Karthikeyan competed in A1 GP, winning twice for A1 Team India. He has also raced at Le Mans, in NASCAR and the Superleague Formula.

Hispania Racing meanwhile has yet to put out any official statement in relation to its 2011 driver line-up."

Cookie_Monster

you can bet thats just because of money though, nothing to do with being a better driver

G-Money

Hate to be a skeptic but no point having a drive when it's not even 100% confirmed they'll be on the grid! I hope they are though, but their situation seems precarious. I can't see them having much of an updated car since Toyota pulled the plug on the joint effort, towards the end of last year.

RayM

It seems that Chandhok rejected the 'opportunity' to drive for HRT. With the return of the 107% rule this year, he's probably made the correct decision. I predict that, after a string of DNQs, HRT will GTFO early in the season. If they even get that far...

ro_chez

And Colin Kolles has announced that Senna is guaranteed not to be driving for them next year...looks like his F1 career lasted 1 season!

So, Klien or Yamamoto for the second seat.

Frank Bullitt

Imagine if Karthikayan was outside of the 107% rule at the indian GP.

Bad move, he isnt a great driver.

ro_chez

Gintonious wrote: »

Imagine if Karthikayan was outside of the 107% rule at the indian GP.

Bad move, he isnt a great driver.

To true, as Cookie_Monster said before, its all about the monies!

Peter Windsor is of the opinion that Force India might be well off going for Chandok for this season but if he were to do well, it might take the attention away from Vijay and his team in the home country!

losthorizon

I think HRT were virtually within the 107% fastest time at every GP last season. They only missed out once or twice!

frostie500

losthorizon wrote: »

I think HRT were virtually within the 107% fastest time at every GP last season. They only missed out once or twice!

It's not so much that they only missed out on a few occasions last season that should be worrying for the team, their lack of development will mean that they will be at risk at a lot more races in the coming season. Below is a spreadsheet that shows the three new teams and their performances relative to 107% of the fastest time in Q1:



As you can see the Number 1 HRT driver(in most cases Senna) averaged only 0.5s faster than the 107 time and the Number 2 HRT driver was only 0.04s inside the times. Admittedly these are somewhat skewed by certain races but the fact that the team averaged 0.3s inside the time barrier doesnt bode well for 2011.

It's interesting to note the performances of some of the drivers. The Lotus pair are very evenly matched with Trulli coming out just 0.1s faster than Kovalainen when you look at the average fastest qualifying lap and Glock a further tenth behind Kov (very impressive considering that his car was generally considered to be quite a bit slower than the Lotus.

Frank Bullitt

There is also no assurance that the new car will be any good at all either, they have very little funding, before this deal anyway, so i can see them being right at the back, with Virgin and Lotus a good bit ahead of them, they seem to be more focused in the long term.

Iron Hide

Force India not confirmed yet, outside chance of Chandhok getting Liuzzi's seat? He's in with a good shout for their test drive anyway methinks. Between Yamamoto and Klien for the 2nd HRT seat id say, whoever can come up with the $$$

Iron Hide

frostie500 wrote: »

It's not so much that they only missed out on a few occasions last season that should be worrying for the team, their lack of development will mean that they will be at risk at a lot more races in the coming season. Below is a spreadsheet that shows the three new teams and their performances relative to 107% of the fastest time in Q1:



As you can see the Number 1 HRT driver(in most cases Senna) averaged only 0.5s faster than the 107 time and the Number 2 HRT driver was only 0.04s inside the times. Admittedly these are somewhat skewed by certain races but the fact that the team averaged 0.3s inside the time barrier doesnt bode well for 2011.

It's interesting to note the performances of some of the drivers. The Lotus pair are very evenly matched with Trulli coming out just 0.1s faster than Kovalainen when you look at the average fastest qualifying lap and Glock a further tenth behind Kov (very impressive considering that his car was generally considered to be quite a bit slower than the Lotus.

Looking at that it seems like Di Grassi has great one-lap pace, maybe he needs a decent car someday.

frostie500

Iron Hide wrote: »

Looking at that it seems like Di Grassi has great one-lap pace, maybe he needs a decent car someday.

The reason Di Grassi's average time difference to the 107% is so great is because he didnt complete a lap in German qualifying. If you plug in a lap time of 78.343(same time as Glock) he ends up with an average laptime of 1m37.269 which is 1.78s slower than Glock, doesnt bode well for him to get back to F1 anytime soon

Sorry about the oversight when I was doing that table!