HRT’s upgrade showed potential in Turkey.
But a wheel problem for Vitantonio Liuzzi kept them from beating their rivals.
Narain Karthikeyan | Vitantonio Liuzzi | |
Qualifying position | 22 | 20 |
Qualifying time comparison (Q1) | 1’31.564 (+0.872) | 1’30.692 |
Race position | 21 | 22 |
Laps | 55/58 | 53/58 |
Pit stops | 3 | 4 |
HRT drivers’ lap times throughout the race:
Narain Karthikeyan
Stopped with a problem in the wet first practice session.
Despite the upgrades to the F111 Karthikeyan was slowest in qualifying again. Kamui Kobayashi’s stoppage and Jerome D’Ambrosio’s penalty elevated him to 22nd.
Liuzzi’s problems meant he finished behind his team mate but almost a minute behind D’Ambrosio.
Narain Karthikeyan 2011 form guide
Vitantonio Liuzzi
Out-qualified Timo Glock and started in front of the other Virgin as Jerome D’Ambrosio was given a penalty.
But D’Ambrosio overtook Liuzzi on lap nine and began to pull away from the HRT.
Liuzzi’s hopes of beating him were dashed at his first pit stop when a wheel gun problem meant a wheel nut was lost and Liuzzi had to come in again for another stop on the next lap.
However his lap times showed HRT’s upgrade have brought them closer to Virgin.
He said: “We’ve shown an improvement in our performance and had good pace on Friday and Saturday proving that the gap has closed with Virgin.
“In the race we need to try and understand what we did wrong, we had a problem with both front tyres and need to work on this to make sure it doesn’t happen again in the next race.”
Vitantonio Liuzzi 2011 form guide
2011 Turkish Grand Prix
smifaye (@)
9th May 2011, 11:05
Sorry but there’s an error somewhere in here.
But didn’t he finish behind his team mate according to the stats above?
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
9th May 2011, 11:07
Yes, that should have said ‘behind’. Thanks.
Tom L.
9th May 2011, 12:19
I actually understood it differently. Seeing as this was in the Karthikeyan section, I assumed that “he” referred to Karthikeyan, rather than Liuzzi, and therefore that “in front of” was correct…
Dutch_Alex
9th May 2011, 11:27
A team that was “a waste of grid space” in Australia. And here they are, getting close to virgin. I think if they can keep up their form, they could beat Virgin in the championship again this year. Go HRT!
timi (@timi)
9th May 2011, 11:39
yeah i agree. very pleased to see HRT seemingly close up the gap to their nearest competition.
Also question Keith, interestingly enough i saw that one of the teams was complaining of only actually getting 41 seconds of visual time on air in china… could the team have been HRT? because throughout FP1 and FP2 they were shown a lot more than i think i saw them for the whole of last season!!
Zecks (@zecks)
9th May 2011, 14:09
Nah they had two cars running. I imagine it was virgin
Fixy (@)
9th May 2011, 16:35
Liuzzi’s merit.
wigster (@wigster)
9th May 2011, 12:29
At least theres some consolation for HRT and Liuzzi in knowing they weren’t the only ones to have tyre changing issues with wheel nuts this weekend.
Eggry (@eggry)
9th May 2011, 13:47
Last year three new teams are almost in same order. Now Lotus is closing to the slowest established team(whoever it is), HRT is closing to Virgin. It’s much more interesting.
KaIIe (@kaiie)
9th May 2011, 15:39
That lap time graph is pretty interesting. Looks like it doesn’t matter how much fuel HRT has onboard, the speed (or lack of) is pretty consistent.
wasiF1 (@wasif1)
9th May 2011, 16:19
What HRT is doing is that they are racing only with Virgin & vice verse.Look at Lotus they are confident to give a hard time to the mid runner.
kateafan
9th May 2011, 16:46
Tough luck for Liuzzi, he’s making the most the the car’s upgrades in qualifying ahead of Glock, hope to see him with better luck in Monaco, where he’s always raced well.
US_Peter (@us_peter)
9th May 2011, 20:36
I’d wondered what happened to Liuzzi. There was not mention of his problem on SPEED, but the result showed him finishing 2 laps down on his team mate which I was a bit confused about.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
9th May 2011, 22:24
It looked promising for HRT but just not to be…yet. Karthikeyan isn’t doing much for me.
The New Pope
11th May 2011, 4:42
This is a cool spot.