Karthikeyan signs race deal with HRT

Duke · 6 Jan 2011 at 17:27

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/88821

Quite good move for HRT as he is a sound driver and although doesn't have massive experience, he would be better than Senna or the other GP2 drivers.

Shimmy · 6 Jan 2011 at 17:53

If he was the real deal I'd have thought he'd be at Force India by now.

To me it looks like another sponsorship deal for HRT with India hosting one of the rounds this year.

Flibster · 6 Jan 2011 at 18:09

*sigh*

No doubt, replacing him a few races in will be Georgio Pantano and then replacing him will be Ralph Firman.

ShakenNstirred · 6 Jan 2011 at 19:37

another mobile chicane

.:MBK:. · 6 Jan 2011 at 20:12

guess hes got more backing than chandhok, shame. Unless of course chandhok lands himself something better of course

GingerNinja1989 · 6 Jan 2011 at 20:35

I hope Chandhok lands himself somthing better, especially after the way HRT decided to blame the drivers for everything going wrong this year.

pingwing · 6 Jan 2011 at 20:39

From a financial point of view its going to keep the team on the track for another season.

From a racing point of view he was pretty poor last season he raced, out scored and out done by Monteiro (who, aside from the US gp, actually scored a point at spa on merit) which doesnt say much other than he's a better backed moving chicane than Yamamoto or Bruno Senna.

Expect 5 drivers to be signed up for the 2 seats to "provide competition" aka money and only one with any ounce of talent doing 3 races where the car is going to be shown up the most...

SKILL · 6 Jan 2011 at 21:45

Do HRT actually have any ability to build a car yet?

Last I heard they used Dallara for last years car but didn't pay them so Dallara told them to go swivel. Then HRT had plans to buy Toyota's 2010 car as a basis for 2011, but again HRT failed to pay the bills so that's off.

Is there even going to be a HRT on the grid?

JRS · 6 Jan 2011 at 22:00

SKILL said:
Is there even going to be a HRT on the grid?

I'm hoping not, to be honest. And I'm a big advocate of having larger grids.

arknor · 7 Jan 2011 at 04:13

his sponsor are giving HRT CFD time

Computational Research Laboratories (CRL) is a company fully owned by the Tata group. Located in Pune, India, it is engaged in research and development in the field of high-performance computing.

In November 2007, a supercomputer named EKA was built at CRL with technical support from Hewlett-Packard and $30 million USD of funding from Tata Sons. At the time it was the fastest supercomputer in Asia and 4th fastest in the world.[1] As per the results of the International Supercomputing Conference held in November 2010, EKA is the 47th fastest supercomputer in the world. For the complete list of the results of ISC2010, see [2]

KnightStalker · 7 Jan 2011 at 06:29

I thought he did pretty well when he last had a race seat, not sure what hes been doing since then though, hopefully single seater stuff, but if hes been in GT cars well hes gonna be a little out of touch for a while.

Duke · 7 Jan 2011 at 08:38

Now confirmed by the team - http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/88822

Flibster · 7 Jan 2011 at 18:59

Chandhok has come out and said that he turned an offer from HRT down.

I don't blame him. It's going to be a modified 2010 car from what it seems like now and given that it was a dog in 2010, I suspect that the 107% rule may be implemented more than once this year.

Lopéz · 7 Jan 2011 at 19:25

Flibster said:
*sigh*

No doubt, replacing him a few races in will be Georgio Pantano and then replacing him will be Ralph Firman.

It's like being back in the early 90's, strings of faceless pay drivers all trundling around and not making it out of pre-qualifying.