Ok to those regular readers of Clip The Apex it will be no surprise to hear me declare I have a soft spot for Hispania as the ultimate underdog. Some of you will remember I recently declared I was losing faith in the team however I've had a bit of a rethink on that and have decided that Hispania are setting a very good example for any under funded team wanting to establish itself in F1. Ok you can stop laughing now and listen to my reasoning.
In July 2011 the team was purchesed by Spanish Investment group Thesan Capital who decided to uproot the team from its German base and establish them in Spain in order to give the team a more Spanish identity, They even brought in a former Spanish F1 driver to be the new team principle in the form of Luiz Perez-Sala. In order to do this Hispania put a delay on producing their 2012 car and were required to replace 90% of their work staff to the F1 fans of the world this seemed an absolute joke. The logical thing would have been to build the car and get as much testing in as possible and worry about the relocation later right? Also this Spanish National Team thing is silly right? What do they expect Fernando Alonso is just going to drop everything and join them? course not. Well maybe the F1 fan only thinks of things in an F1 way and maybe whats needed is to think in a business way.
Germany is a big F1 country - probably the second biggest after Great Britain. The idea of locating itself in Germany was that the staff it needed would already be there however you have to think would the sponsors be? With 5 German drivers, a German engine supplier and a German team(all be it based in GB) not to menton Red Bull's big Austrian link anyone in Germany wanting to invest money in F1 have a lot of options. Spain however, other than Santander, is pretty much an untapped resource as until Alonso rose to fame there was no interest in the sport whatsoever and whislt no title sponser is going to occur from the move, a relocation to Spain and a Spanish identity would certainly attract the smaller Spanish investors. To prove this you have to only look at the recent deal with Azkar. Azkar are a spanish international transport company who specialize in import and export who have over 87 facilites world wide and a fleet of 3000 trucks for transportation. Azkar get their name on the car and get written about in articles like this as well as getting plenty of free tickets for Grand Prix to woo their prospective clients with whilst HRT are given a reasonable sized cheque as well as assuring themselves completely free transport of their staff and machines to every Grand Prix which lets face it must slash their bill for the year. Not only that but with the factory move creating jobs and them promoting Spanish business has to appeal to the Spanish government and could open up the avenue for some possible government investment.
Now how am I going to justify their crazy driver line-up? well I can't completely but I think you have to look at it in the long term. The team had announced a Spanish identity and needed someone to represent that but at the same time they needed someone with the experience to tell them exactly what was going on with their car development. Now if you scrub out Fernando Alonso's name and considered that Jamie Alguersauri is a no go their really is only one option and thats why they opted for Pedro De La Rosa. Is Pedro going to set the races alight? no of course he's not, he belongs to the breed of driver who can tell you exactly what you need to make a car fast but doesn't seem to be able to drive it to its full potential but in the position HRT are in right now do they really need a racer? Or do they need someone who's been in the sport for a decade and can advise them on what they need to do? As for the second driver. I think we were all a bit stunned when Karthakeyen was announced again but lets not forget in the one race he was up against Ricciardo he beat him in qualifying and in the race fair and square so maybe he isn't as bad as we rate him and also HRT need to secure their future so why not take his money and make sure they spend it wisely?
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that HRT could have built their 2012 car early and got it out testing the moment they could with 2 young up and coming chargers at the wheel and what would have happened? They probably would not have got any further up the field than second to last team which is a position they already have. As Brogan points out in a recent article the testing restriction makes it impossible for these new teams to make a quick jump to join the pack so why should Hispania make that their priority? If they are going to be dueling it out with the Marussia's anyway why not make sure the teams financial future is secure and set up a system so that eventually they can claw thier way up field. You only have to look in the background driver wise to see they know this. Dani Clos as thier 3rd driver doing Friday session is thier hope for the future(and attraction for new Spanish investment) who I'm sure they'll get in the car the first oppotunity in their budget they can. I'm pretty sure Clos will run in GP2 as well in order to get himself more backing in order to be odds on for that seat when Karthakeyens cash runs out but running Friday session for HRT will do him no harm at all. Before the new driver-line up was revealed it was made clear that Antonio Liuzzi was working with them behind the scenes on development and having driven for Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Force India again I'm sure his experience was invaluable. Its not been announced that he's left and he was suppose to have a contract so it would not surprise me if he wasn't still helping them now. Last season we saw Hispania start being 2 seconds behind its nearest rival and finish the season pretty much in front of them - thats a big gain. I think the aim this year is to keep developing that car and keep learning, Gleem what they can from the experience of going to every Grand Prix in the hope that one day they'll get to use it. It occurs to me that if you're a young and under budgeted team this is the only way to play it - results are never going to come so learning and establishing is the best way forward.
Another thought, which I think was originally planted in my head by TBY. if you asked the majority of casual F1 fans who the worst team in F1 were they would all plump for HRT. Not a good thing right? Not the ideal situation no but they are a team who the world know. They do get column inches. They even get TV time which at least gives them something to promise the sponsors. Virgin/Marussia have if anything done a worse job than Hispania over the last 2 years and thats with more backing, a more approved of driver line up and even a link with Mclaren but nobody is interested and no one has heard of them. You only have to look at our discussion thread to see that HRT have twice as many comments as Marussia did and when it was thought HRT's car wouldn't be ready in time for the tests people cared enough to insult them and talk about it - when Marussia announced no car before the Grand Prix I think their were barely 3 comments. F1 is all about publicity and any is better than none.
So what do you think? Are Hispania doing a good job of securing the teams future and should that come before attempting results? or do you think I'm talking nonsense and they've made a pigs ear of it?
In July 2011 the team was purchesed by Spanish Investment group Thesan Capital who decided to uproot the team from its German base and establish them in Spain in order to give the team a more Spanish identity, They even brought in a former Spanish F1 driver to be the new team principle in the form of Luiz Perez-Sala. In order to do this Hispania put a delay on producing their 2012 car and were required to replace 90% of their work staff to the F1 fans of the world this seemed an absolute joke. The logical thing would have been to build the car and get as much testing in as possible and worry about the relocation later right? Also this Spanish National Team thing is silly right? What do they expect Fernando Alonso is just going to drop everything and join them? course not. Well maybe the F1 fan only thinks of things in an F1 way and maybe whats needed is to think in a business way.
Germany is a big F1 country - probably the second biggest after Great Britain. The idea of locating itself in Germany was that the staff it needed would already be there however you have to think would the sponsors be? With 5 German drivers, a German engine supplier and a German team(all be it based in GB) not to menton Red Bull's big Austrian link anyone in Germany wanting to invest money in F1 have a lot of options. Spain however, other than Santander, is pretty much an untapped resource as until Alonso rose to fame there was no interest in the sport whatsoever and whislt no title sponser is going to occur from the move, a relocation to Spain and a Spanish identity would certainly attract the smaller Spanish investors. To prove this you have to only look at the recent deal with Azkar. Azkar are a spanish international transport company who specialize in import and export who have over 87 facilites world wide and a fleet of 3000 trucks for transportation. Azkar get their name on the car and get written about in articles like this as well as getting plenty of free tickets for Grand Prix to woo their prospective clients with whilst HRT are given a reasonable sized cheque as well as assuring themselves completely free transport of their staff and machines to every Grand Prix which lets face it must slash their bill for the year. Not only that but with the factory move creating jobs and them promoting Spanish business has to appeal to the Spanish government and could open up the avenue for some possible government investment.
Now how am I going to justify their crazy driver line-up? well I can't completely but I think you have to look at it in the long term. The team had announced a Spanish identity and needed someone to represent that but at the same time they needed someone with the experience to tell them exactly what was going on with their car development. Now if you scrub out Fernando Alonso's name and considered that Jamie Alguersauri is a no go their really is only one option and thats why they opted for Pedro De La Rosa. Is Pedro going to set the races alight? no of course he's not, he belongs to the breed of driver who can tell you exactly what you need to make a car fast but doesn't seem to be able to drive it to its full potential but in the position HRT are in right now do they really need a racer? Or do they need someone who's been in the sport for a decade and can advise them on what they need to do? As for the second driver. I think we were all a bit stunned when Karthakeyen was announced again but lets not forget in the one race he was up against Ricciardo he beat him in qualifying and in the race fair and square so maybe he isn't as bad as we rate him and also HRT need to secure their future so why not take his money and make sure they spend it wisely?
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that HRT could have built their 2012 car early and got it out testing the moment they could with 2 young up and coming chargers at the wheel and what would have happened? They probably would not have got any further up the field than second to last team which is a position they already have. As Brogan points out in a recent article the testing restriction makes it impossible for these new teams to make a quick jump to join the pack so why should Hispania make that their priority? If they are going to be dueling it out with the Marussia's anyway why not make sure the teams financial future is secure and set up a system so that eventually they can claw thier way up field. You only have to look in the background driver wise to see they know this. Dani Clos as thier 3rd driver doing Friday session is thier hope for the future(and attraction for new Spanish investment) who I'm sure they'll get in the car the first oppotunity in their budget they can. I'm pretty sure Clos will run in GP2 as well in order to get himself more backing in order to be odds on for that seat when Karthakeyens cash runs out but running Friday session for HRT will do him no harm at all. Before the new driver-line up was revealed it was made clear that Antonio Liuzzi was working with them behind the scenes on development and having driven for Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Force India again I'm sure his experience was invaluable. Its not been announced that he's left and he was suppose to have a contract so it would not surprise me if he wasn't still helping them now. Last season we saw Hispania start being 2 seconds behind its nearest rival and finish the season pretty much in front of them - thats a big gain. I think the aim this year is to keep developing that car and keep learning, Gleem what they can from the experience of going to every Grand Prix in the hope that one day they'll get to use it. It occurs to me that if you're a young and under budgeted team this is the only way to play it - results are never going to come so learning and establishing is the best way forward.
Another thought, which I think was originally planted in my head by TBY. if you asked the majority of casual F1 fans who the worst team in F1 were they would all plump for HRT. Not a good thing right? Not the ideal situation no but they are a team who the world know. They do get column inches. They even get TV time which at least gives them something to promise the sponsors. Virgin/Marussia have if anything done a worse job than Hispania over the last 2 years and thats with more backing, a more approved of driver line up and even a link with Mclaren but nobody is interested and no one has heard of them. You only have to look at our discussion thread to see that HRT have twice as many comments as Marussia did and when it was thought HRT's car wouldn't be ready in time for the tests people cared enough to insult them and talk about it - when Marussia announced no car before the Grand Prix I think their were barely 3 comments. F1 is all about publicity and any is better than none.
So what do you think? Are Hispania doing a good job of securing the teams future and should that come before attempting results? or do you think I'm talking nonsense and they've made a pigs ear of it?