HRT may make 2nd test according to De la Rosa

Posted by Mikel on January 25th, 2012 at 11:55am

We discussed some of the rumors and concerns over the HRT team in Monday’s podcast right here. While we weren’t sure, at the time, as to if HRT would be bringing the new car to the second test of the winter season, it seems that driver Pedro de la Rosa is more optimistic about the chances telling AUTOSPORT:

“The plan is to test with the old car at Jerez, and then run the new car in the Barcelona test on February 21. That’s the plan,” de la Rosa told Autosport.

“It’s been said there are delays, but I don’t see it that way. I think the whole process of producing the car started very late and the team is making a superhuman effort to have the new car on track on February 21.

“I’m very calm. From the day I signed I knew that this was more or less the plan. It hasn’t been modified.”

Rumors of the teams challenges in their move from Germany to Spain have added to the notion that they are not running on all 8 cylinders and that perhaps the team will be lucky to even make the grid in Australia in MArch. While those are simply rumors, de la Rosa knows this was going to be a struggle the day he signed to drive for the team in 2012:

“The plan is to have a pre-season that is as long as possible. It’s always best to do as many kilometres as possible. But it’s not a critical situation because it’s going according to plan.

“Things get more intense when those plans have to change because the parts are late or because there are problems, but it’s not the case. I think that having two tests before Australia we will be fine. There are bigger teams who have also opted to do this too.”

Will HRT make the grid in Australia? Can they test the new car in late February? Will they show up for the first running during the Friday practice for the first grand prix of the season and fail to qualify like 2011? It is difficult to say but for the teams sake, I do hope they can make it as I was actually pleased to see their reliability last year once they got the niggles worked out and they didn’t finish last in 2011…that honor befell Virgin Racing.

Under Racing