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A former Formula 1 driver with Minardi back in the late '80s, Luis Pérez-Sala was named Team Principal of HRT Formula 1 Team at the end of last year. He talked about the second half of the 2012 season.
He began by admitting that he was perfectly aware that the early part of the season would be difficult.
“As we've already said on multiple occasions, we've almost changed the entire team, we've moved to a new headquarters where we've been based since early April, and all of this whilst we built a new car,” Pérez-Sala said in an interview posted on the HRT web site.
“It was a very ambitious challenge, a priori it was impossible to accomplish, but we've made it with very limited resources,” he added.
Pérez-Sala continued by saying that the Cosworth-powered F112 is not such a bad car. “I think that, overall, the F112 is a car that has given quite a good result, keeping in mind how it started,” he said.
“During last winter I had a lot of doubts, because the car was handed to us and we didn't have enough time to review it. It has a good base and that's its biggest strength. It's a reliable car with good mechanical resistance and it offers a lot of possibilities for its development. I'd say we're at 50% of its potential and we can still extract another 50%, mainly in aerodynamics,” he explained.
The Spaniard hopes that the next upgrades will boost the performance of the F112. “We have some upgrades prepared for the Singapore Grand Prix. As a small team we can't afford small upgrades every two or three races because the cost of an upgrade or creating a new piece for a small upgrade is very high. I hope that the aero package that we will introduce after the summer will help us to take the next step. The objective is to stay between the 104 and 105% and have the project for 2013 prepared,” he added.
In a recent interview, driver Pedro de la Rosa admitted that he was losing up to two seconds a lap everytime a faster car was lapping him. That makes race strategy pretty complex.
“We're not in the fight for points and the fact that we get lapped means that our strategy is always difficult. But it serves us to accumulate experience and, hopefully not in too long, when we're a part of the battle for points or a fight for better positions, we will be much better prepared to make the right decisions,” Pérez-Sala ended.
He began by admitting that he was perfectly aware that the early part of the season would be difficult.
“As we've already said on multiple occasions, we've almost changed the entire team, we've moved to a new headquarters where we've been based since early April, and all of this whilst we built a new car,” Pérez-Sala said in an interview posted on the HRT web site.
“It was a very ambitious challenge, a priori it was impossible to accomplish, but we've made it with very limited resources,” he added.
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| Photo: HRT F1 Team |
Pérez-Sala continued by saying that the Cosworth-powered F112 is not such a bad car. “I think that, overall, the F112 is a car that has given quite a good result, keeping in mind how it started,” he said.
“During last winter I had a lot of doubts, because the car was handed to us and we didn't have enough time to review it. It has a good base and that's its biggest strength. It's a reliable car with good mechanical resistance and it offers a lot of possibilities for its development. I'd say we're at 50% of its potential and we can still extract another 50%, mainly in aerodynamics,” he explained.
The Spaniard hopes that the next upgrades will boost the performance of the F112. “We have some upgrades prepared for the Singapore Grand Prix. As a small team we can't afford small upgrades every two or three races because the cost of an upgrade or creating a new piece for a small upgrade is very high. I hope that the aero package that we will introduce after the summer will help us to take the next step. The objective is to stay between the 104 and 105% and have the project for 2013 prepared,” he added.
In a recent interview, driver Pedro de la Rosa admitted that he was losing up to two seconds a lap everytime a faster car was lapping him. That makes race strategy pretty complex.
“We're not in the fight for points and the fact that we get lapped means that our strategy is always difficult. But it serves us to accumulate experience and, hopefully not in too long, when we're a part of the battle for points or a fight for better positions, we will be much better prepared to make the right decisions,” Pérez-Sala ended.