It’s that time of the week again: time for us to look at the past teams that made an exit from the sport of Formula One, having scored no points. This week, we remember Hispania Racing F1 Team.
In 1997, a retired Formula One driver who participated in 21 with Minardi in 1987 and 1988 named Adrián Campos founded a motor racing team called Campos Racing. The team made their debut in the new Open Fortuna series created by Nissan in 1998. The team won the championship in their first season, showing that they were successful. They did so again in 1999, with Fernando Alonso taking the title for the team. The team won the title again the following year in 2000. In the later years, the team became active in GP2 and Formula 3. The team has more success in these series.
In 2009, Campos and Enrique Rodríguez from Meta Image explored the idea of becoming the first Spanish Formula One team. In the summer, the team became one of three new entries into the 2010 season, running the Campos Meta name alongside the US F1 Team and Manor Grand Prix. By the end of the 2009 season, the team had already confirmed that Bruno Senna would be one of the team’s drivers in the upcoming season.
However, by the end of the year concerns were emerging about the financial stability of the team. The team announced that they would not be able to run in pre-season testing, still hadn’t found a second driver and wasn’t likely to announce a second driver until the weekend of the season opener in Bahrain.
With no changes in the health of the team, one of the shareholders, José Ramón Carabante, had taken full control of the team and rebranded it to Hispania Racing F1 Team or HRT for short. The team was named after one of Carabante’s companies, Grupo Hispania. The team later confirmed that Karun Chandhok would be making his debut with the team.
Having run no testing laps, the team rushed to Bahrain, with the still not ready. The team was able to get a car ready for Senna to drive in the first free practice session, allowing him to perform the car’s first few untimed laps. Both cars started at the back of the grid for the race, performing over 10 seconds off of the pace. The debut was less than ideal, with a double retirement ending the team’s day.
Mechanical failures and crashes prevented the team from achieving strong race results. Senna was dropped by the team for the British Grand Prix, allowing Sakon Yamamoto to race the car. Senna returned to the following round in Germany, but the same could not be said for Chandhok who was dropped by the team. Yamamoto took his place. Results didn’t improve. Food poisoning for Yamamoto saw Christian Klien in the car for the Singapore Grand Prix. Yamamoto returned to action at the next race, only to be replaced by Klien for the remaining two races.
Having abandoned Dallara in mid-2010, the team was in need of a new chassis manufacturer. Near the end of 2010, the team had secured a deal with Toyota, although it was later cancelled due to payment disputes. Another sign of financial instability was the team’s exit from the Formula One Teams Association. Despite the team saying that they left by choice, FOTA claimed that the team was banned from the group because they hadn’t paid their membership fees in 2010.
The team recruited Narain Karthikeyan and Vitantonio Liuzzi to drive the car, but neither driver was allowed to race at the season opener in Australia for failing to meet the 107% rule. The Malaysian Grand Prix showed a pace improvement compared to the Virgin cars, but the team was the victim of a double retirement. At the British Grand Prix, Daniel Ricciardo replaced Karthikeyan and made his Formula One debut. The team’s performance didn’t really improve and the team again failed the 107% rule in Belgium, although the FIA allowed the team to race in the event.
The 2012 season saw a big management shift within the team, with Colin Kolles leaving his post as the team principal. Pedro de la Rosa signed a multi-year contract with the team and Karthikeyan returned. The team also changed their operations location. The car was on track to debut in pre-season testing, but failed the crash tests. The car’s first performance in Australia again saw the failure of the 107% rule.
With little changing, the team was put up for sale in November, with only a month to find a buyer. During the sale process, Josef Král signed a contract to drive for the team in 2013. No buyer emerged and the team was removed from the 2013 entry list. A group of North American investors later made bids to try and buy the team to form Scorpion Racing, but the deal was never completed. The team’s assets were put up at auction and sold to an automotive parts recycling firm with the intention of racing the cars in the BOSS GP series.
HRT became the first of the 2010 entries to fall out of the sport, having never scored a single point in the sport.
Points are a difficult thing to obtain in Formula One. In this weekly series, we will look back the past teams who gave it their all, but fell short.
Points are a difficult thing to obtain in Formula One. In this weekly series, we will look back the past teams who gave it their all, but fell short.
