Team: Geoff Willis (TD), Boris Bermes (Chief of Operations), Toni Cuquerella (Chief of Racing and Testing), Colin Kolles (TP) Drivers: Narain Karthikeyan (22), Vitantonio Liuzzi (23)
A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
Looking on the crashed lotus of chandock.. there appears to be a separate crash structure built inside of the nose. So that might be their clever way of keeping a homologated crash structure while still having the ability to change the shape of the nose.
n_smilke -> yes, it's one of the ways to do it without having to re-take the crash tests. But between a low nose and a high nose, the shape would change too much for them to be able to keep the crash structure inside right?
I'm guessing it's also how the RBR nose flexes down. Hard core and soft shell...
I like the look of the new HRT. Also, the designation F111 harks back to one of the all time coolest looking fighter bombers lending the team a menacing quality which is nice.
The car does look well realised considering its problematic conception and birth. I bet it produces a good chunk more downforce than the Virgin too as Geoff Willis knows what to bolt onto a car to get fundamental/rudimentary performance which is something the Virgin clearly lacks. It may be draggy downforce but at that end of the grid good cornering characteristics is worth way more than straight line speed. Not that Virgin has the latter of those qualities either.
Considering they only did a handful of laps and neither driver really pushed for a lap time, I bet Virgin are thinking that HRT are already too close for comfort considering the half hearted 1m 32s that Liuzzi posted.
If Liuzzi had managed to get out in FP he would have built up some confidence that the car was not going to disintegrate underneath him and would have been able to push harder in qualifying. Unfortunately, this wasn't the situation but come Sepang there will have been a lot more tinkering going on we could see some very glum faces down at the Virgin garage, especially if HRT get the 2011 spec front wing and a working DRS in time.
"I started out with nothing and I've still got most of it".
HRT is a bit like Ensign was in the 70s not much in terms of money but capable people punching way above their finance...Mo nunn could not afford to bring his car to all races let alone overseas but Chris Amon did miracles in qualy back then.
I would love to see them surprise us with speed.
