HRT: Liuzzi beats Karthikeyan despite penalty

2011 Chinese GP team review

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A drive-through penalty failed to stop Vitantonio Liuzzi from beating his team mate again in China.

HRT

Narain KarthikeyanVitantonio Liuzzi
Qualifying position2423
Qualifying time comparison (Q1)1’40.445 (+0.233)1’40.212
Race position2322
Laps54/5654/56
Pit stops12

HRT drivers’ lap times throughout the race:

https://www.racefans.net/charts/2011drivercolours.csv

1234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303132333435363738394041424344454647484950515253545556
Narain Karthikeyan120.121109.877109.069108.639108.638108.596108.047108.25108.838109.748109.293108.569108.619108.723108.772108.578109.503108.946108.357108.731108.752109.323115.197134.956109.188112.803107.664107.11106.453108.327106.237108.29108.328107.302106.345106.62106.447109.185106.52106.248106.081107.36107.699110.746106.352107.085108.506108.405109.98107.459106.91111.519108.004107.994
Vitantonio Liuzzi118.323110.323109.582108.96108.475108.562108.091108.161112.878119.203108.695108.311108.219108.24108.035108.739112.28108.795109.122109.593116.182132.226109.38107.243108.646106.821106.727106.783106.376106.782107.744106.527108.048106.74107.11106.709108.478106.615107.104106.38107.445108.138111.68108.915114.743125.532105.477104.677104.015104.073103.906103.384103.696105.248

Narain Karthikeyan

Ran a one-stop strategy, starting on softs and pitting for hards on lap 23.

He had Timo Glock and Liuzzi behind him with six laps to go, but both passed him before the end of the race.

Narain Karthikeyan 2011 form guide

Vitantonio Liuzzi, Narain Karthikeyan, HRT, Shanghai, 2011

Vitantonio Liuzzi

Liuzzi’s weekend started badly when he came to a stop in first practice. He missed most of second practice while the team rectified an unusual software problem, which Geoff Willis said was caused by corrupted files getting onto the car.

He passed both Virgins as the race began but was handed a drive-through penalty for jumping the start.

The team switched Liuzzi to a two-stop strategy and he caught back up to his team mate and overtook him before the end of the race.

Liuzzi ended the race 18 seconds behind Glock, although the Virgin driver was delayed by his strategy.

Vitantonio Liuzzi 2011 form guide

2011 Chinese Grand Prix

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    26 comments on “HRT: Liuzzi beats Karthikeyan despite penalty”

    1. A positive weekend from HRT. Good milage for the “new” car and both of them managed to finish. If I was MVR, I’d be shaking in my boots…the team with no money, a geriatric car and 1 sponsor are coming to get you!

      1. Exactly my sentiments. They have alot to be proud of and Virgin surely are looking over their shoulder more and more.

    2. I didn’t know it was possible to run a one stop strategy in this race, so hats off to Narain for trying. But if you look at his lap times, Narain seems way too inconsistent in the second stint. Finishing behind Liuzzi after he had a drive though penalty is kind of embarrassing, but then again we kind of expected Narain to be a bit of an embarrassment anyways.

      1. I guess large part of the reason for the big time differences are being passed by other cars.

      2. The back markers lap times are always inconsistent though as they tend to get lapped and finding themselves needing to pull over all the time.

        If you look at the earlier laps before they get caught by the front runners their times are far more consistent.

      3. I wouldn’t say Karthikeyan should feel embarrased. Keeping Liuzzi behind with the state his tyres were in, would have been would have been very difficult for anyone.

      4. @Todfod please see the graph for your reference mate he was on par with luizzi until luizzi made his last pit stop on lap 46 for set of soft tyre.
        narain changed to hard tyre’s on lap 24 he ran 30 lap on hard tyre’s naturally his tyre’s would have been dead at penultimate laps of race ,i think u can understand that there will be massive speed difference between a set of fresh soft tyre and worn set of hard tyre.
        And before declaring narain as ’embarrassment’ he is improving, he was 1.3 slower in Australia than luizzi in qualifying and brought down gap to 2 tenth in china.
        don’t forget this is guy who hasn’t race in f1 for last 5 years and this was first race he completed after 5 years

      5. Subaru_600BHP
        18th April 2011, 13:16

        people who call other drivers an embarrassment don’t seem to have a clue about motor racing, there are so many factors involved, in fact someone who has never even driven in any sort of motor race let alone a GP is not in the best position to judge.

    3. Interesting they went for a 1 stopper at first. Does it save money not to change the tyres (air usage, wear on the guns, disk wear) or is the team feeling it’s not worth it?

      1. Just trying different strategies. So next time they will know. When they become better.

      2. Like all slow cars, the hrt looks tyre-friendly. Karthikeyan’s fastest lap-times in this second stint are 1:46 during almost the entire stint. So at least the tyres didn’t reach the “cliff” in that 30-lap period. So maybe the hrt can do with one pitstop less.

    4. Don’t know why the smaller teams keep going for longer stints, it’s quicker to pit more.

      1. They’re probably trying to spend less time getting lapped, which costs a lot of time because of the blue flags.

        Look out for Glock’s quote in the Virgin review which is going up any minute now…

        1. Ah, that sounds interesting, will go look why Glock feels he didn’t use right strategy, the same as the winner.

    5. Ah! so HRT was really in China? I thought I saw a glimpse of them when Hamilton and Vettel were overtaking some backmarkers nothing else.

      Its a poor situation really HRT have been on the screen for about 2 seconds. If this is happening all the time the “cool spot” will not be “hot” any time soon.

    6. The lack of stops by both HRT cars seems slightly odd, either they’re simply not fast enough to damage their tyres, or they’re being daft?

      Karthikeyan’s car is doing 108 second laps in the first couple of laps, and 106’s at the end, after all the fuel’s burnt off, but after his only stop, he’s doing 106’s with plenty of fuel still in.

      When Liuzzi is putting in 103 second laps at the end, it seems like Karthikeyan is losing 3 seconds a lap to the tyres (or to being a bit rubbish for F1…).

      1. Webber was almost 2 seconds faster than Vettel towards the end of the race. Does that also imply that Vettel is rubbish?

        1. But Karthikeyan really is rubbish against Liuzzi (and against anyone else).

          1. come on fixy narain was just 0.2 sec off luizzi in qualifing at china

            1. just compare the graph in page fixy you will see he was matching pace of liuzzi until liuzzi stopped for set of soft tyre at lap 46 and narain was already had done more than 20 lap on hard tyre and it was only at last lap that liuzzi was able to pass narain so your analysis does not hold any ground

    7. A drive-through penalty failed to stop Vitantonio Liuzzi from beating his team mate again in China.

      This is class.

    8. I dont think Narain is that bad. I can see him as a decent reserve driver after this season.

    9. That’ll teach HRT not to open any more emails from Virgin. Interesting to hear that the common ECU is susceptible to “corrupt” software. Maybe Mark Webber’s car needs a scan too.

    10. I don’t think you can blame him for this, fresh softs at the end would let anyone rip up the time sheets.

      His graph looks quite good for a back marker. I suspect Liuzzi got a bit of clear air after his stop especially with the extra pace and Narain is having to let people through with his crippled tires.

    11. I think they both look to have pretty nicely consistent and similar speeds; the fact that the 1 stopper by Karthikeyan kept him at the same pace until the end tells us that they at least keep their tyres pretty well; Liuzzi made the difference seemingly after his last tyre stop for softs.

    12. Can’t believe HRT didn’t have a checksum in place for onboard software files. I wonder if that’s the case in the other teams as well.

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