Narain Karthikeyan: Hispania Racing Team play important role – Formula 1 Update
Formula 1 Hispania Racing Team driver Narain Karthikeyan has said that small teams such as HRT are equally important for this sport, like the bigger teams.
He also mentioned that Hispania, Virgin, and Toro Rosso, being small teams play a vital role in Formula 1.
He added that, small teams are beneficial for the younger drivers, who want to get a break in the sport and get time to learn the new rules of the season. Moreover, every sport has this type of pecking order that only makes the competition more interesting
and nothing else.
A few days ago, Karthikeyan updated the media with the fact that his team’s survival on the Formula 1 grid seems ‘hard’ after the very difficult start to the 2011 championship.
HRT has kicked off to a disappointing start in the 2011 season, retiring from the first two races held in Australia and Malaysia. In the Chinese Grand Prix, both drivers, which included Vitantonio Liuzzi and Karthikeyan were again unable to put their best
run against the strong competitors of Formula 1.
The Indian driver said, "It's a small team. We have put together a pretty little car. The major difference against the bigger teams would be that we don't use KERS. We didn't get any mileage on the cars in the winter testing, so since then we were basically
playing catch-up. But it's coming together for us now.”
He added that HRT is not fighting for their world titles and race wins, they only want to show that this team is also important for Formula 1 and that they are all a main part of this ongoing show.
Narain went on to say, "The fact is we (backmarker teams) are never in contention for the title. But teams like these are equally important for F1. They provide the platform for younger drivers and for drivers like me who are coming back. There's this hierarchy
in every sport, but it only makes it more interesting."
HRT had a plan to bring some minor developments in their new machine, for the Chinese Grand Prix, but again those updates could not show their down-force on the grid due to having technical issues in their cars.
After the Chinese weekend, the team is looking forward to getting more data on their car, in order to be better prepared for the season’s European races.
Despite of its disappointing start to this season, HRT is still willing to do their best in the remaining races. All Formula 1 teams have moved towards Istanbul, for the preparation of the season’s fourth race taking place on May 8, 2011 in Turkey.
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