Q+A with Colin Kolles

Colin Kolles of the Hispania Racing Team has had a rough season so far, with the team changing hands just before the season started, and a near miss to the start in Bahrain. But now the situation has greatly improved and they are seeing frequent double car finishes from both Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok. They now foresee an improvement for Canada at just over a weeks time.

As we are now nearing the 8th Grand Prix of the year, what can you say about this season up until now?
"The first objective was to arrive in Bahrein which was a tough start. Since then we were trying to stabilize the team and to reach a more normal way of working. We are making progress in all the areas which is positive."

What are your impressions of the car’s progress up until now? "We have it now in our hands and we have our own development program. We will have some updates on the current car. For 2010 we have to take a rather pragmatic approach. Regarding 2011 development program we will have an announcement very soon."

What can you say about HRT F1 Team Drivers, Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna? Are you happy with the drivers development? "Karun and Bruno are very talented young drivers which developed well in the first races. Bruno had quite a good qualifying and race in Istanbul, Karun a good race in Monaco. Unfortunately Bruno has been stopped by a fuel pick up problem and Karun by a race incident, to get a good result in these races. I am confident and looking forward Bruno and Karun doing a good job in the coming races which will improve the overall performance of the team."

Both Hispania Racing’s test and reserve drivers, Sakon Yamamoto and Christian Klien, have now taken part in a Friday session with the team. Are you happy with their performances? In what way do they help the team? "I think both did a good job giving additional feedback to our engineers."

After fighting for positions with other teams in the Turkish Grand Prix, what can we expect from Hispania Racing in Canada? "We expect a similar performance if not better. I think the car characteristics will fit better to circuits like Canada and Valencia. We should get closer."