Tag Archives: karun chandhok

Full year report: Hispania

Hispania Racing only just made the start of the season and are rooted to the bottom of the standings. Their car just isn’t fast enough and has never looked like being so. They have swapped drivers around and haven’t had an experienced driver to drive the car. With funding for next year still uncertain and the team never really having got started it seems deals with Williams are the next best thing. If they start next year then they need to start putting in performances that trouble the bottom teams otherwise why bother.
Bruno Senna all of his uncle attitude but I haven’t seen the raw pace or the fire, maybe it’s hidden inside the awful car but he needs to provide something for people to get excited about if he wants to stay in F1, his name will only get him so far.
Karun Chandhok was a nice guy who was [...]

On Webber in Spain and what could have been

The 2010 Spanish GP won’t go down in history as a classic and you could be forgiven for forgetting who won it as Webber just disappeared and was untouchable out front with a flawless drive from beginning to end. All the action went on behind him. It seemed that Michael Schumacher had finally got the better on Nico Rosberg, but then Rosberg had such a poor race it could have just been a bad weekend for him. Problems at pit stops caused issues for Button and Vettel and some dodgy driving put pay to some other’s races.
Sebastien Vettel again showed that Red Bull do have a weakness even if it isn’t speed, unfortunately for the others they don’t seem to have reliability either. Hamilton will also be ruing the lost points and they may cost him later on in the season as Button continues to pick up points. Button himself [...]

Hispania Racing target finishing in Australia

The HRT Cosworth team boss Colin Kolles has come out and said that the team are targeting a finish in Australia and have been working flat out to achieve this. He said that just turning up in Bahrain was against the odds.
It seems that the team have some work to do with Karun Chandhok crashing in Bahrain and Bruno Senna’s car blowing an engine – I guess they don’t really have to worry about the 10 place grid penalty, or the 5 place gear box penalty. I wonder if they have to pay Cosworth per engine. I wonder how many spare parts they have for the car with all the problems that they’ve had with Chandhok’s car.
Finishing in Australia is probably quite ambitious given that Senna’s 18 laps are the farthest the car has ever gone. It is good to see a realistic aim though, getting one of the cars [...]

How did the new teams do in the first race?

Bahrain played host to three brand new teams this year, Lotus, Virgin Racing and HRT Cosworth/Hispania Racing. After months of preparation it was their first taste of F1 proper with nothing to hide behind.
Lotus performed the best of the new teams, they had a seemingly problem free weekend with their cars both going on to almost finish the race – they were both classified as finishers though. They were off the pace and even got outqualified by one of the Virgin cars but the results happen on race day. Top marks for their effort though and as they were the last team to be granted their entry they have done a fantastic job, it shows what bringing in F1 experience can do.
Virgin Racing put on a reasonable show though neither car finished the race due to technical issues – one hydraulic related and one with gearshift problems. The car looked [...]