HRT - 2011 Preview

2010 was a challenging year for the people at HRT. Originally admitted to the championship as Campos, it was only a last minute intervention by Colin Kolles that saw the team make it to Bahrain with two cars, albeit just. The year didn't get much easier after that with the first few races being just an attempt to get miles into the car. Combined with driver changes and incidents like Sakon Yamamoto leaving the pits too early and breaking a pit crew members year, 2010 was a year HRT was glad to reach the end of. Arguably the hardest part is now over and they can only move forward.

At least that's what you'd hope. Promising signs are lacking thus far with their decisions not to re-sign two talented drivers in Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna. Although it seems the decision on Chandhok was made halfway through last year, whether due to financial reasons or other causes are thus far unknown. But it's worth noting that at the point he was replaced, Chandhok was the best performed of the drivers in the new teams. Achieving that in a car a long way off the Lotuses is no small feat.

Yet HRT chose instead to sign Narain Karthikeyan. The fact he's been signed ahead of notorious buy-a-seat driver Yamamoto and Senna suggests he comes with some serious financial backing, no doubt due to the Indian Grand Prix launching this year. However Karthikeyan has had his chance in F1 before and failed to impress. He was outraced by Montiero in 12 races compared to the 7 Karthikeyan came out on top. It suggests HRT are again targeting money, not talent. And that's never been the way to get ahead in Formula 1. Yes it's an expensive sport to compete in, but ultimately sponsors follow results. And you'll never get the kind of money you need to compete further up the grid without first getting up there on your own.

So with HRTs seemingly continuing their focus on survival rather than succeeding can we really expect that much improvement? Part of that will come down to who the other driver is. The rumour going around is that it's going to be Tonio Liuzzi, with his seat being funded by Force India. But Liuzzi hasn't exactly demonstrated himself as a stellar driver either, and he's definitely not the type to drag an average car up the grid. If they were targeting talent they'd go out and sign up Hulkenberg or someone of the like as there are countless talented drivers out there. But it appears HRT will simply focus on simply existing without actually achieving anything.

Ultimately all we can expect from HRT is for them to aim to beat Virgin more often than not. They're not yet at a level where they can challenge the seemingly more competent Lotus and trundling along behind everyone else like they did last year isn't really good enough for a second year team. But this year they have time to focus on preparing the car, unlike last year, and the one they produced last year wasn't entirely hopeless, as Chandhok showed. So the promise is there. What it will come down to is quite simply the will to put in the effort and money needed to get up the grid, versus the desire to simply exist for the sake of existing.

Over to you, what are you expecting from HRT in 2011? And what do you think will happen?