HRT split from Dallara

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HRT F1 have ended their collaboration with Dallara.

The Italian chassis manufacturer created the F110 which the team has used this year.

HRT will continue to use the car but development of the car will be done in-house, most likely under the leadership of Geoff Willis who has been working with the team since the start of the year.

HRT had been critical of the Dallara car which has been the slowest in F1 so far this year. It did not run in pre-season testing and according to HRT the “no further chassis development was made by Dallara” during the first six rounds of the championship.

The team issued a statement saying:

HRT F1 Team, Hispania Racing, and Italian chassis manufacturer Dallara Automobili S.p.A have together agreed on amicable terms not to pursue their collaboration. The decision follows talks held over the last few months about the future of their collaboration.

The two partners experienced a challenging start to the 2010 Formula 1 World Championship season, where everyone at Dallara Automobili S.p.A worked extremely hard in a fight against time to be ready for the season opener at Bahrain International Circuit. Their persistent and determined efforts paid off as HRT F1 Team, Hispania Racing, pulled up to the starting line of the 2010 Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix ready to go.

The whirlwind of pre season activity at the Italian chassis constructor Dallara Automobili allowed the team, formerly known as Campos Meta 1 prior to its acquisition by Jose Ramon Carabante in February 2010, to meet its tight deadline. Since its inaugural race HRT F1 Team, Hispania Racing, has completed six rounds of the 2010 Formula 1 World Championship despite the fact that in all this time no further chassis development was made by Dallara.

The collaboration, deemed by many to be an impossible task, resulted in the creation of the team’s Cosworth V8 powered 2010 Formula 1 World Championship chassis, the F110, which was the very first car to be produced in the colours of HRT F1 Team, Hispania Racing.

Following the completion of six rounds of the 2010 Formula 1?óÔÇ×?ó World Championship, HRT F1 Team, Hispania Racing, and Dallara Automobili S.p.A have agreed that what they have achieved in such a short period of time was more than could have been reasonably expected. The two parties wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavours.

HRT F1 Team, Hispania Racing will continue to develop and improve the Dallara designed F110 chassis via its own development program.

The details as to the outstanding terms of their business agreement remain confidential, and no further comment will be issued.

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Keith Collantine
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21 comments on “HRT split from Dallara”

  1. Horrray…. and remove cosworth engine too… replace it with renault, and Senna please become the front runner :D

    1. Prisoer Monkeys
      26th May 2010, 8:36

      Um, swapping the Cosworth for the Renault isn’t going to suddenly propel the Hispania up the timing sheets. The chassis itself is the problem; both Geoff Wills ad Christian Klien have criticised the F110 for its low quality build.

      1. Yeah.

        How much difference would there even be between those engines? Cosworth has been allowed to update their engine so that it has the same performance. AFAIK they are even now still allowed to update their engine. The whole idea of the engine freeze is that all engines are equal within a very narrow bandwidth.

        At worst the engine could make a difference of a few tenths.

    2. ridiculous specially the senna bid hes not f1 material and i dont know how are hrt going to make a decent chassis no experience limited funds they are aiming to be 2 sec off for next year i guess

      1. correct. they may have pulled this deal a little to early, since they don’t even have a factory at this point.

        apparently dallara didn’t understand that in F1 you have to continuously develop and upgrade your car during the season..

  2. It would be good to see if Geoff Willis can at least stem the loss of time relative to the Virgin and Lotus cars in the next two thirds of the season.

    Does this mean that he is confident in the team’s ability to design and build the 2011 HRT car?

    It is disappointing that Dallara couldn’t make a better case for other current (and prospective) teams collaborating with them, because it could have helped reduce costs further.

  3. I just hope they dont fold beofre years end.

    1. I wouldn’t be devastated if they did. That way we might get Epsilon and ART or another pair of much more professional racing teams onto the grid next year.

      1. Ned Flanders
        26th May 2010, 11:45

        I wouldn’t mind either, providing some other team replaced them.

        In fact, are the FIA duty bound to choose the 12 existing teams plus 1 new team for the 2011 grid. Or could they choose two new teams, one at the expense of Hispania? Because I reckon a few of the potential new teams have better credentials than Hispania have

        1. MouseNightshirt
          26th May 2010, 13:11

          I would doubt the FIA would be allowed to or even want to replace Hispania with another team, regardless of the credentials. It would seriously damage the “attraction” of the sport to new teams; why bother if the FIA could chuck you out after a year?

          Hispania have two things all the other wannabe teams do not: a fully functional chassis with supplier contracts and an entry. That alone makes them far superior.

  4. I seem to recall reading that the biggest hurdle to HRT developing the car themselves was that Dallara still had all the technical data, does anyone know if this situation has changed?

    1. surely that shouldn’t matter. HRT have the car right infront of their eyes! thats all the technical data they need.

      1. I can’t remember the details of the article but it said something like it would be much easier for HRT to make updates if they had all the data from Dallara such as from the wind tunnel, otherwise they would have to reverse engineer the car which obviously will take up a lot of valuable time and money.

        1. Bigbadderboom
          28th May 2010, 9:01

          I suspect they have enough DATA from race telemetory and experience with the car. What is strange is that it will take all their efforts to just stem the loss in times to Lotus and Virgin, with very little resources. Their lack of pace will only be compounded next season, i can’t see how they will develop this years car and develop next years.

  5. “The details as to the outstanding terms of their business agreement remain confidential, and no further comment will be issued.”

    Sounds like HRT might still owe Dallara money, and that could be the real reason for the split. Remember when Stefan GP tried to buy the yet-to-be-paid-for Dallara chassis out from under Campos before the season…

  6. Dallara might be able to build a spec car but I never tought they would be able to build a competitive f1 car.
    Let alone a good development of it!
    I’m still a bit disappointed we aren’t allowed to see customer chassis in some kind of form. It would give us much better racing!

    1. Why couldn’t a standard Chassis be built, by the leading teams, in collaboration, that new entries have the option of using for 1 or 2 years?

      1. Sometimes I think it would be better for F1 for the FIA to give the teams a standard chassis for the first test, and then they can do what they want with it from then on. All wind tunnel etc. stuff banned until they get the car. Would be interesting but probably unworkable. How do you just stop them from turning it into an RB6 for the first race?

  7. Magnificent Geoffrey
    26th May 2010, 22:35

    Can’t say I’m surprised. Seems they put more effort into the wedding than they did the actual marriage itself. Typical.

  8. Bruno please get into a good team. Can’t wait for Hamilton vs Senna vs Alonso.

  9. Dallara’s chassis is not even up for GP2 standards so sounds like a good move. There are rumors of HRT buying the old Honda’s site in Germany. Also, very recently the team announced ex finance Minister Boyer and businessmen Cortina as new team members. That sounds to me like they are here to stay.

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