HRT happy to close the gap to other new teams
The final countdown to the first ever race in Korea got underway this afternoon, as the qualifying session was completed. The Hispania Racing, HRT F1 Team drivers, Sakon Yamamoto and Bruno Senna, will start tomorrow’s Grand Prix in Yeongam 23rd and 24th respectively and the Spanish team was able to close the gap to the other new teams.
A difficult first day at the Korea International Circuit was redeemed by a positive Saturday, as both drivers were able to get more track time and continued improving their times during today’s sessions.
Dr Colin Kolles, Team Principal: “Both of our drivers showed a good improvement compared to yesterday. The track got more grip and consequently the lap times got quicker. We had to adapt ourselves to the changes of the circuit and we expect it to keep on improving tomorrow as well. Sakon did a very good qualifying and we could close the gap to the new teams. Unfortunately, he lost one position in the last seconds of the session, otherwise he would have been further up. The whole team was working hard again to get the best out of the cars and therefore, I want to say thank you very much. Tomorrow’s race is going to be exciting and we hope to fight for positions.”
Sakon Yamamoto, Race driver #20: “I am very happy about our qualifying result at the first Korean Grand Prix. With the data we got yesterday and this morning, we could improve the car and I could do my best lap in qualifying. We were very close to the other competitors and I want to thank the team for preparing the car very well. Now we are looking forward to tomorrow, but we don’t know if it’s going to rain during the race. But, as always, we will try to do our best and bring both cars to the finish line again.”
Bruno Senna, Race driver #21: “Today we managed to work on the car as we could run more laps than yesterday. The qualifying result wasn’t what we expected and maybe we could have done better with more experience on this new circuit. Tomorrow is going to be a long race and we will see what happens during the 55 laps.”
