I get what youre saying, but surly this is Force Majure here.
Personally, i think that there is a issue with the certain front runner, and do think there is a saftey issue with the HRT car here, BUT this is where Force Majure comes in.
Personally i think this could all be simply involved by having the last test session of the winter a mandatory point where all teams wishing to compete in any season should have to be at, and complete a basic 100KM shakedown on at minimum 3 chassis. If need be, have the teams show up to this test with; and be allowed to use up to 2 cars on track at any given time.
Personally, i feel that drivers should complete no more than 7 days testing before a season starts, but no less than one day. With the cost cap, and restricted testing, surly we should have 2 car testing again on the grounds of saftey issues, and the fact that the test and development drivers need to get used to the car before the season.
I suggest three, 3-day tests with 2 drivers per team at each. That gives the teams in effect 18 days testing on their cars, 14 days of whitch are taken up with their race drivers, and 4 days on whitch a test/reserve or developmental driver can get into the car and get used to the surroundings of the car.
However, the HRT situation is a force majure situation here. They didnt have the money, just got rescued at the last minuite. But this leads on to the 2009 tender process for the 2010 season. I think that it should have been a factor that the teams accepted should have had at least 3 years racing in a lower formulae and have the facilities and resources in place for this.
Its trying to strike a tricky ballance between one topic and another here. I dont know how to approach it, but at current, HRT are 8-9.5% behing the front runners. the thing is that if they improve by 50% by Barcelona, they are gonna still be 6% behind the front teams. HRT are up against it, i think the team they have is up to it, but they need to act fast and get the car to improve quite literally 100% on current lap time to be anywhere where i think that Virgin and Lotus will be at the end of the season interms of lap time % to the pole sitters lap.
I am tracking each and every drivers and teams performance this way throughout the season. If they get the investment and the upgrades, and the drivers get the time on track in FP1 & FP2 in the next few races, they will soon catch up and be less of a danger from now on.
Its just one of those situations were gonna have to work with for now.