Saturday: HRT will not compete in the Grand Prix
Like last season, and despite a few laps during the various free practice sessions, both HRTs, driven by Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan, did not pass the 107% threshold and will therefore not participate in the race tomorrow. There is still a lot of work to be done by Friday and the first tests in Kuala Lumpur.
Pedro de la Rosa – 23rd and 23rd
« We did everything we could today. The team made great changes and just being present today was an accomplishment for us, because the last few days have been very difficult for everyone, including the drivers. But there are many areas in which we can improve and, although it is true that we need to change a lot of things, we know where we are, so all I can say is that we must be patient. I already said this when I arrived on Wednesday, it’s a test for us, it’s our preseason. The difference is that we are doing it in front of cameras, and it is highlighted. We should have done this before, but we were short on time, so now all we need to do is work for Malaysia and the following races and focus on the areas that will make the car faster. »
Narain Karthikeyan – 24th and 24th
We knew it would be tough in Australia, but today’s result is really disappointing for us, there’s no doubt about it. We can make excuses for ourselves, but in the end, we lacked pre-season running. We were struggling with that and yesterday’s weather wasn’t good, which cost us dry track time. We have a lot of problems with the car, which is understandable during the pre-season, but the problem is that this weekend was a peculiar pre-season and we were racing against the clock. So there’s a lot of work to be done, and I hope we can improve and move forward.
Luis Perez-Sala, team director
« It is clear that we still have a lot of work ahead of us to be where we want to be and even more to improve our potential, but today is the first time we’ve been able to complete two sessions with both cars, and that’s positive. Even though we didn’t achieve the result we wanted, we corrected some of the problems encountered yesterday and were able to identify the most serious shortcomings. Now, we can work on those and find solutions. These solutions are not immediate, but with these different sessions, we are in a better situation. Time is precious and next week, in Malaysia, we will have four new sessions to prepare for the next race. »
