HRT get new owners.

sportsman

Sidecar racers have the biggest cojones
Contributor
All change on the "new teams".Wonder where this will lead to.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/92839 Spanish investment company Thesan Capital has taken a controlling stake in the Hispania Formula 1 team.
The firm takes over the team from previous owner Jose Ramon Carabante.
A statement from HRT said Thesan would work to strengthen the team and give it a more Spanish character.
"The Spanish investment group will lead the development of Hispania Racing in the upcoming years, maintaining the current team and directors, which is one of the main assets of the company, and will try to develop and search for opportunities to optimise and improve the performance of the team in the upcoming seasons, alongside progressively making the team more Spanish and definitively settling the team in Spain," said the statement.
"The Thesan Capital team, who consider the acquisition of Hispania Racing as an opportunity to enter a sector with great prospects of growing, will work with the aim of strengthening the strategic management of the group."
 
How are they going to make the team more Spanish? Red and Yellow colour scheme? Hiring Jamie Alguersuari? Introducing a Siesta for the mechanics? seems a strange statement.

The Info I could find on Thesan Finance is as follows

"Thesan Capital, S.L. is a private equity firm specializing in special situations and acquisition of medium sized companies in crisis. It seeks to invest in turnaround companies facing financial or operational reorganization. The firm also provides debt to its portfolio companies. It seeks to invest in steel, construction materials, telecommunications, and food manufacturing sectors except newly created project, high technology, and real estate sectors. The firm prefers to invest in Spanish and Portuguese companies. It typically invests between €20 million ($31.24 million) and €30 million ($46.86 million) in companies having annual sales between €200 million ($312.43 million) and €300 million ($468.65 million). The firm invests as a majority shareholder and prefers to take a seat on the board of directors in its portfolio companies. Thesan Capital, S.L. was founded in 2008 and is based in Madrid, Spain"

Makes them sound like a company that buy into companies in trouble, build them up and then sell them on. I don't think its bad news for HRT as I think they'll invest in it but don't see them as a long term owners just someone who are going to get the team in a position to be sold on. At least it secures their future and have to say I find it more ambitious than simply signing a deal with one of the bigger teams to be some sort of B Team.

From the statement made I expect to see Dani Clos racing for them next year and Alvaro Parente to at least be test driver. Hopefully with a company like this behind them they'll at least get the design process finished in time for some testing!
 
This can only be a good thing for F1.

The new teams were at a huge disadvantage before they even entered F1, being forced to use Cosworth engines by Mosley, followed swiftly by all the rule changes.

Then there's the ban on in-season testing which means they are pitting themselves against teams with wind tunnels and CFD resources worth more than their whole team, not to mention decades of real world feedback.

Unless F1 wants to become a 10 team series again, these new teams need as much investment, backing and support as they can get.
 
It's so good to see I've not been too wide of the mark with comments about "6 horse races" and "Why do all 24 cars bother to start?" About time this problem was worked on to narrow the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' in Formula 1.

Excellent News. :thumbsup:
 
It's so good to see I've not been too wide of the mark with comments about "6 horse races" and "Why do all 24 cars bother to start?" About time this problem was worked on to narrow the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' in Formula 1....

They have had over 60 years to sort this one out. There is obviously no inclination to do this, I don't think that they should anyway. F1 is not a one make series, it's richness is that there have always been teams who are there for the Mount Everest reason.

http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1950/379/
 
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