HRT continues progress as Karthikeyan posts second-consecutive race finish

15^th April, 2012 (Shanghai International Circuit) – The third round of the 2012 FIA Formula 1 Championship saw Indian driver Narain Karthikeyan earns his second consecutive finish of the season with the HRT F1 team.

After having failed to qualify for the season opening Australian Grand Prix, the team has taken several strides ahead in terms of reliability and gap to the front runners, building on the good work from last month’s Malaysian GP.

But the conditions were once again difficult when the team first arrived at the circuit on Friday, as overnight rain had left the circuit damp. Halfway through the first practice session, the rain returned and affected the session’s program to a great extent.

The second free practice session on Friday afternoon allowed Karthikeyan to work on some adjustments and fine-tuning.

“The weather wasn’t favourable for us in first practice and I had a few problems as well, but we tried a few different adjustments in the afternoon and it was better.”

At that point of the weekend, he conceded that there was still work to be done.

“We have a few things to look at though, especially on the braking side, but apart from that everything went well.”

Come Saturday morning, the weather was far more favourable in the final practice session and the team was able to work on the set-up of the car for qualifying.

“We made some changes to the setup and fixed a suspension issue which kept us in the pits during the final practice.”

Qualifying went reasonably well, as both cars were comfortably under the 107 per cent time. Karthikeyan was however not fully satisfied, saying there was some more to come.

“I got blocked on my first lap so the tyres were past their best on the second lap. And then I flat-spotted my second set so that affected the final lap time.”

After an encouraging outing at the rain-affected Malaysian GP, he was praying for more of the same for race day.

“If it rains during the race that will benefit us, if not we’ll have to try and do the best we can.

“The target once again is to achieve mileage and I’m confident that the car should be able to make it through the whole distance.”

Race day dawned heavily overcast but there was no rain forecast for the day. The race progressed well, but it wasn’t easy going for Karthikeyan.

On the reconnaissance lap (out of the pits), the suspension problem from the final practice session resurfaced on Karthikeyan’s car and the team had to bring out the spanners while he sat on the grid.

“It wasn’t the best feeling – to have a critical issue like that just minutes before the start.”

After a frantic few minutes, the problem was taken care of, but Karthikeyan wasn’t entirely comfortable.

“The team did a great job dealing with the issue but as a driver you’re still unsure if the car would behave normally once it gets moving.”

Adding to his woes, the start didn’t go off as planned too.

“The start was really bad; we need to do some work on that because it is still new.

“We were still unsure about the suspension, plus the soft tyres weren’t working too well – thecar was moving a lot even on the straights, so we need to look at the data and see what exactly was going on.”

Once switched over to the harder prime tyre, the Indian found the balance more favourable and maintained consistent pace to cross the line in 22^nd place.

Considering the tough weekend, the finish came as a relief and he is now looking forward to the Bahrain Grand Prix next weekend.

“I had my share of problems this weekend so I am looking forward to Bahrain and a much more consistent weekend overall.

“It is a completely different circuit, and it is going to be much hotter but the car has shown good reliability so fingers crossed.

“We need to make some more progress before we head into the European season”,concluded Karthikeyan.