The 2011 Formula One Season

The all new Hispania Racing HRT F111

If by all new you mean 'not at all new'. It is a F110 tub, with Williams 2010 gearbox and suspension. There is almost no difference other than the wings and sidepods.

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Still this does at least look like an F1 car, albeit a primitive one.

Last year's looked like an inflated F3 car. It was like they'd been trawling the bins of factories of failed early 90s F1 teams, picking out brake ducts and exhausts. I was staggered it went as fast as it did and reliably as it did, as I was convinced we had another Andrea Moda on in the paddock.

If it's as fast as the Virgin they have done well...

But turns out dampers are still in customs so say autosport, means no testing again :p

Its crazy isnt it, this team was chosen over Prodrive, though I guess its an unfair comparison since we partly know the reasons Prodrive werent chosen, ie Max is a tw*t.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2011 11:26PM by chet.

HRT won't take part in tomorrow's test because....................their springs are still at the airport!!!! (Ultra LOL)



Stats: 139 Starts / 7 Wins / 9 Poles / 5 Fastest laps

In other words the car was never going to run as it was never going to be ready.

No other team has had this problem and Lotus and Mclaren has parts flown out in the morning and they were on the car in the afternoon.

They'll probably be close to Virgin, and people will blame it on CFD rather than Virgin running on an insanely small budget.

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Right.... so HRT manage to get almost an entire car to Spain, but are unable to bring a few nuts, bolts and springs.

£10 says it doesn't even have an engine in and it's essentially a show car there only to satisfy sponsorship commitments or something. If only we knew.

Well Mclaren are doing all the right things lol. Skip Thursday to get the car ready from Friday and Sat. Friday then spends most of the day in the pits and then Sat it rains.

I cannot see the current people running the team going into 2012.

The rain today and probably the engine issue yesterday are largely just pure luck. On the face of it, skipping Wednesday to get more parts out should have been an excellent decision, but it's just their luck at the moment that it pisses down on the Saturday and it's almost pointless. If the rain had been less, they might have got some useful wet running under their belt, but as it is, the 3 remaining teams have got nearly zero out of the day.

The biggest concern is that for the third year in a row the best funded or second best funded teams have again been left trailing behind aerodynamically.

At least Hispania's lack of parts had zero effect - they'd have got next to nothing out of the day if even the top cars can't even go flat-out down the S/F straight.

Why don't Hispania do what Minardi did, and get loads of small sponsors to get rid of most of those godawful messages on the car. I can't help but see the appointment of Juan Villalonga as a waste of time.

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GPGSL: S6 - TafuroGP Tester (14th) /// S7 - ART Tester (6th) /// S8 - Demon Driver (13th) /// S9 - Demon/Snake Driver (13th) /// S10 - Snake Driver (???) ///]
"My ambition is handicapped by laziness" - Charles Bukowski

Mclaren seem to think they are on the pace in terms of race pace an are just missing 1 lap pace.

What do we think of the midfield pack then? Obviously there's still two weeks until the first race and plenty of updates still to come, but it's looking like another excellent, compact battle. I thought I'd while away the time posting a few short thoughts of my own, given we should have had a race to look forward to tomorrow.

I fear Force India have been cast adrift. They have lost several key team members and have not done anything impressive in testing. Hopefully they've not concentrated on low fuel runs, but I can't help but feel that they just don't have the ability to keep up with the midfield in the long term. Unless they can attract exciting young design talent I can see them becoming the new Minardi - plucky, but slow. It's probably Sutil's last chance in this team - while he's clearly a decent driver, he's not shown himself to be quick enough, often enough. Will they be genuinely challenged by Lotus this season? If so, it will have been a dramatic slide for them, and once more worrying for their future.

Mercedes have clearly taken a big leap forward in Barcelona... but most teams will have updates for Melbourne... have Mercedes peaked too early? Two strong drivers, and the ever-anonymous Rosberg will probably still have the edge over Schumacher, but they're not going to challenge for the title and probably not race wins - podiums are about as high as I can see them getting.

Renault I'm in two minds about. They've clearly been bold over the winter, but so far the car doesn't look to be the most consistent performer, and I can well imagine such a design being excellent on some tracks (being third fastest), while struggling at others (falling behind into being the fifth or sixth fastest car). Clearly the loss of Kubica is a huge dent to their hopes, and now they've no 'drivers driver' able to outperform the car, but if the car is quick, it will speak for itself on some tracks - Silverstone will show in great clarity if the aerodynamics are as strong as they are brave.

Sauber ought to have taken a step forward with James Key's influence continuing to impress, but still with a relatively bare car, you worry about the rate of development. They've had a decent pre-season, so let's hope they haven't flattered to deceive in order to attract sponsorship, as they did last year.

Toro Rosso have undoubtedly made a step forward. They look to have a strong base and decent pace, but I still have doubts over the drivers - it's a make or break year for Buemi in particular.

Williams have aimed to do the same as McLaren did - cleared a path to the rear end - but gone about it with some common sense and a lot of aggression. The result is that they look to be the strongest they've been for some years, pushing for points in every race. Can they be close to McLaren in the first races? Rubens might, but I'm willing to put money on Maldonado spinning out in Albert Park, though he'll be fun to watch this year, if not a great performer. A bit of a Sato or a Petrov? Flashes of brilliance dominated by mediocrity and mistakes?

Well I think it is very close! Mercedes have probably leapt out of it in the last few days, but there are still a lot of teams in there, with the surprise addition of McLaren.

Anyway, I think Mercedes have probably locked in 3rd place now. Schumacher does like an oversteery car, and with the tyres and the car, it seems to be suiting him better. It should be a good battle between him and Rosberg, and I think it will be close.


Renault showed some great early pace, but they have failed to progress from there. Heidfeld in particular put down some excellent stints. So there are already questions about their budget and resources to develop the car. Heidfeld will be a valuable asset early in the year when we are likely to get some chaotic races as the teams get used to the new rules.

Toro Rosso will probably have a good start to the year, as they often have, but I don't think they have the resources to stay there for the whole season. The drivers will certainly be under pressure with Ricciardo there on the Fridays. They are pretty much driving for their F1 lives. If they do well, they might even end up alongside Vettel in 2012, but if they perform poorly, they might be following Speed and Bourdais onto the Red Bull scrapheap. It's nice that they are starting to be more unique with their shape, and the sidepod/floor unit seems to be working well.

Williams looks good, but I think unreliability will be a problem for them early on. Barrichello's racecraft will be very valuable for them with this year's rules. I think the battle between Rubens and Heidfeld will be an interesting one to watch in the midpack. Both of them also have erratic team-mates to deal with as well.

Sauber look good, and it will be fascinating to see how the drivers go. Kobayashi has already shown in Abu Dhabi 2009 and some parts of 2010 that he can drive very well to a strategy, so I think he should improve futher. Of course there is a history of Japanese drivers having a bad second year, so that will be the biggest challenge for Kamui to overcome. Perez has looked quite good, and is probably my tip for rookie of the year, at the moment.

I predicted late last year that Force India were on the slide, and it seems to be happening. There were already bad signs last year when they got outdeveloped by Williams and Sauber. There are also budget issues, as Mallya is losing money in his airline, and Indian companies seemingly don't want to partner with the team because of his bad business reputation. Their driver line-up is also weaker than Lotus and the other teams around them. I think Lotus might be able to get past them a couple of times during the year. I think Di Resta will find it hard to adapt from DTM to F1 in the first few races.

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X (@ed24f1)

Thought I would make the HRT "Stupidity in customs" story slightly more funny:



So much for testing either of their cars so far before the first race!!! lol



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2011 05:52PM by alexf1man.

I think Di Resta will probably outscore Sutil. I just rate him more...

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GPGSL: S6 - TafuroGP Tester (14th) /// S7 - ART Tester (6th) /// S8 - Demon Driver (13th) /// S9 - Demon/Snake Driver (13th) /// S10 - Snake Driver (???) ///]
"My ambition is handicapped by laziness" - Charles Bukowski

Nice summary there Gav.

Good points about FI. They were on the up until last season. It all looked good for them, Spa and Monza 09 seem so long ago now! It's a shame because I was hoping that the 'Jordan' team would once again be the ones fighting above their weight.

Sauber are interesting, they've been fairly quiet over winter but I think there must be more there.

STR too are interesting, they've been quick! For a small team with limited resources, even given RB money, they have shown alot of innovation and clever thinking. Their first Newey free car looks to be the best out of all the Newey driven cars (bar 2007, where Vettel embarrassed the factory team big time :p). I would like to see them quick but ive got no love for their drivers. They are boring, they dont really inspire me like most the other guys. If the car was good, I could never really see them getting the most out of it which is a shame.

I think Renault have some in reserve. Something just tell's me that will car will give at least Mercedes and Mclaren some headaches and maybe even Ferrari and RBR.

Williams though are perhaps the one im most looking forward to seeing in Oz! I really really really really hope the car is as good as we think! 3rd/4th best car would be an absolute dream!!!

Ferrari look like they could do the 2011 Oz GP 24 hours with that car!!! Im amazed at the mileage and just how reliable its been! Reminiscent of the Brawn-Todt Ferrari days. Alonso with a bulletproof car is a major danger for anyone hoping to race against him. Though the brilliant thing is RBR have been reliable. At least more so than in previous years. Given those facts I cant see anything else than Alonso v's Vettel for the first 3-4 races. At least until Mclaren can give Lewis a decent enough car. Until then though im thinking of classic Mclaren v's Ferrari but with RBR and Ferrari !

Mclaren do seem pretty awful. Not quick, not reliable...

Lotus look awesome! But I would say still behind the established teams but well ahead of Virgin and HRT. Virgin I hope have sorted their reliability because that is what cost them. They had the speed last year.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

There are a few things being said on line that it is very likely that the gp in Japan will probably be cancelled. It's still way off anyway and it's probably the last on anyone's mind right now.

I guess we will have to wait and see, and yes it's very low priority at the moment.

I was about to say that too - I see I'm not quite alone there. Obviously it's ages off yet, but it depends on how events play out there. It sounds increasingly horrifying for the poor people who live there, with a high probability of getting worse. If it does get dramatically worse a cancellation will have to be considered, pending how things pan out between now and October. It's definitely not that far away from Fukushima. But more concern just now has to be for Tokyo.

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I doubt at the moment anyone is considering a cancellation. Even next weekend there are international football friendlies taking place in the country.

It's a long way from affected areas, so that won't be an issue. Transport links south from Tokyo and most of the north should be fine by then (just not the north east you'd imagine).

Justifying it won't be a problem if it can help boost the economy and moral and highlight how issues are being tackled. Hopefully Bernie will do his bit to help, show he's human, and drastically cut the cost for staging the race this year.

The only issue I can see is if power rationing is still taking place. You can't build nuclear power stations in a year. It would be hard to have a power-sucking race if the nation can't even have round-the-clock electricity.

Has anyone listened to radio lemans preview? I heard a snippet to do with Mclaren (link on autosport forum in Mclaren thread) mentioning their problems are based primarily on the exhausts, with components overheating and failing. The problem is the entire concept of the car was designed based on this odd exhaust layout they have.

As ever, radio lemans is a great listen. I promise myself to try and listen to the full shows but it just never happens!

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL