HRT F112 – Different set up for Hispania duo at Monaco

  At Monaco Karthikeyan only raced a rear wing having a mini plane on the beam wing (yellow arrow) for extra downforce . Furthermore  “THESSAN” sponsorship logo was added on the endplates .

HRT F112 – New rear wing at Spain

    HRT managed for a small team to produce a major upgrade pack for the first 2012 European race at Spain . The new package apart from the new front wing , middle zone and rear bodywork changes included a new rear wing . The endplate bottom of the new wing is  less boxy bottoms and has horizontal gills instead of circular . Clearly the middle zone changes (analyzed here)  triggered the endplate changes close to the diffuser area which look now more Red Bullish .

HRT F112 – A Two year step back on development for bargeboard at Spain

         F112 launch version lacked any bargeboards but soon a set of 2011 (F111) alike flow conditioners added on the car before Melbourne . At Spain the team moved not a year back but two instead by placing a 2010 (F110) alike set ! The two years dated  bargeboard has a saw tooth upper profile and does not extend behind the sidepod panel (no1 in the image below) but ends exactly where the floor surface starts . That itself proves that old parts could sometimes be more effective than newer ones and should never be forgotten  .Worth’s remembering though that F112 chassis is based on the same 2010 Dallara chassis opted to regulation changes .

 

        The new bargeboards dictated the sidepod panel’s  vertical slot to move slightly to the rear (no 3) , some changes to the rear zone and finally  the floor vanes become thicker , longer and more aerodynamic (no 2) to cope better with the new set .

HRT F112 – New front wing hit first European race

 

       At Spain a new front wing made appearance with a revised and more elegant second flap . The horizontal slot that divided the second flap is now gone while the main flap turned from red to black color . HRT raced the new wing even at low downforce tracks of Canada , Belgium and Italy but of reduced attack angle to minimize drag .

    A positive change for the team was the addition of sponsorship logos at endplates since Belgium ( KH-7) and flaps since Monza (ermestel) . Sponshorship is vital for each team and one of its main economic funding sources .

 

“KH-7” logo addition on endplates at Belgium

 

“ermestel” logo addition on flaps at Monza

HRT F112 – front wing development up to Bahrain

   A higher downforce front wing replaced the pre season testing version at Australia . The more advanced  Australian wing had additional upper decks ( in black) which boost downforce production . The upper decks have been reshaped at China and gained a bending downwards profile close now to the endplates .However  both the Australian and Chinese wing specs are not new but instead  copied from last season . Becomes apparent that low budget prevents the team to deliver new parts. Nonetheless HRT ,apart form the front wing, proceeded  to numerous revisions on the car up to Bahrain, including brake components , nose vanes , bargeboards  and rear end revisions  .

HRT F112 – nose vanes development up to Bahrain

Australia - Melbourne
1.Skirts , hanging under the nose cone
2.Vanes , this time hanging under the chassis behind the skirts, added at Australia.

    Up to Bahrain HRT presented three nose vane versions . Initially at Barcelona on March the F112 had a pair of skirts (No1) hanging under the removable nose cone . The addition of Bargeboards at Melbourne came alongside with extra nose vanes (No 2), which were placed behind the skirts .This combination of skirts/vanes expanded the air channel under the nose but another more elegant and  smaller vanes  arrived at China and retained since then .

China - Bahrain
Renault school vanes , hanging under the nose cone

HRT F112 – bargeboard addition at Melbourne

 

         A set of bargeboards was present on F112 at Melbourne even though the initial version of the F112 lacked any . Bargeboard is a small piece of bodywork placed in front of the sidepod and act as flow conditioner .Its aerodynamic role was restricted since 2009 , due to changes on technical regulations ,  but  bargeboard still contributes a lot to drag reduction and cooling .

 

HRT F112 – protection from heat

 

  HRT moved so far (Launch to Bahrain) to up to four different  F112 bodywork versions around the exhaust area to protect the car from heat . In extreme hot Bahraini conditions the black colored heat protective bodywork expanded down to the floor level . Even the team since Melbourne  had the upper wishbone of the rear suspension wrapped in thin gold foils to reflect heat .

 

HRT F112 – TECHNICAL DETAILS

 

Engine:	Cosworth V8 2400cc CA2012.
Max rpm:	18.000.
Engine weight:	95Kg (minimum FIA regulation weight).
Chassis:	Carbon fibre and honeycomb composite Monocoque.
Front Suspension:	Carbon Fibre Double wishbone with pushrod operating torsion springs and antiroll-bar via rocker.
Rear Suspension:	Carbon Fibre Double wishbone with pullrod operating torsion springs and antiroll-bar via rocker.
Dampers:	Lineal Hydraulic dampers.
Fuel tank:	Kevlar reinforced rubber fuel cell.
Wheel:	Carbon Fibre with integrated electronics and instrumentation.
Steering System:	HRT Hydraulic servo assisted system.
Gearbox:	Williams seven-speed “Quick-Shift” sequential semi-automatic shift.
Clutch:	Carbon Multi Plate.
Brake material:	Carbon brake discs and pads.
Brake Callipers:	6 pistons all round.
Cooling system:	Aluminium oil, water and gearbox cooler.
Seat belts:	OMP.
CockPit:	Removable seat made of anatomically formed carbon composite and six-pointseat belt & HANS system.
ECU and logging system:	FIA standard ECU & FIA homologated electronic & electrical system.
Battery:	12V.
Wheel Rims:	Magnesium alloy.
Tyres:	Pirelli P Zero.
Overall width:	1.800mm.
Height:	950 mm.
Front track:	1445 mm.
Rear track:	1420 mm.
Car weight:	640Kg (Minimum FIA weight).

 

 

 

credit : Hispania Racing Team

The F112 covers its first kilometres at Montmeló

All the hard work has finally paid off today as the F112, the car with which HRT Formula 1 Team will compete this season, completed its first laps at the Circuit de Catalunya, in Barcelona.

Since the car passed the last crash test and was homologated, the team has carried out work shifts to cover 24 hours a day to make sure it could make it, for the first time in its history, to the first Grand Prix of the season having run previously.

The car was able to run after the team took advantage of one of the filming days available during the season.

The car made it to the circuit from Munich, Germany, just after one in the afternoon and the mechanics and engineers got straight down to business, working on relevant adjustments. It was a combined team effort, working against the clock, which saw its rewards four hours later when Narain Karthikeyan led the car out onto the track. Pedro de la Rosa, Dani Clos and Tonio Liuzzi were also present, as were Carlos Gracia, President of the Spanish Motorsports Federation and Salvador Servià, General Director of the Circuit de Catalunya.

The tests were carried out without any setbacks and the car carried out over ten laps. The team was able to check that the car functioned properly both from a mechanical and aerodynamic point of view as from a systems standpoint.

The team will prepare the necessary material in the upcoming days and head down under for the first Grand Prix of the season which will take place at Melbourne, Australia, in just two weeks.

Narain Karthikeyan: “Today was a shakedown of the F112 and I have had the honour to be the first driver to test it. The first impressions are quite good; it’s definitely a step up from last year. We couldn’t do any set-up work or stuff like that but everything seems to be working fine and there are no major problems so we can look forward to the season now. Everyone has worked hard and the new team management has put everything together in a very short period of time. They’ve done a proper job with the car and I’m sure that it’s a big step forward from last year, so hopefully we can take the competition to the teams we were fighting last year”.

Pedro de la Rosa: “Today has been a very special day because the car saw the light for the first time; Narain did some installation laps and then various times laps without any issues. This is very important, it might not seem like it, but any sort of mileage before Australia is vital to see that the car is in good conditions. From here it is our job to try and improve it and make it progress”.

Luis Péres-Sala, Team Principal: “I’m very satisfied today as it is a very important day for us because we were able to test some things out with the new car during this filming day. I’m very proud of each and every member of this team because everyone has contributed their little bit for this to be possible. Now we have to focus on Australia because we still have a lot ahead”.

credit: HRT

 

Modified front wing for HRT F111 at Spa

 

       It took half season for HRT to launch the first update of its 2011 spec wing ( the version raced back inAustraliawas actually a 2010 wing ) . The revised wing with the oversized and reshaped cascade winglets wasn’t able to change the natural grid order of course and HRT remained at the far back. However it is admirable to see small teams put hard effort to gain speed with minimum budget .

 

 

HRT F111 – quest for extra downforce

 

 

In slow and high downforce street track of Monaco , HRT F111 inherited an extra single element winglet over the rear light to increase the stability of the rear end . Nevertheless during the whole weekend the team faced balance problems on both cars , problems difficult to be delt properly due to reduced amount of free running . Luckily for the team both drivers managed to finish race , something really important for HRT .

 

HRT F111 , Fin-less engine cover for Liuzzi in China

 Liuzzi , China

In China Liuzzi raced with a fin-less engine cover in contrast to Karthikeyan ( lower illustration in yellow )  . The shark fin improves car streamline but has a negative impact as it makes the car more sensitive to side winds . Liuzzi choice to reject the shark fin can be justified by the fact that his car version in Sinopec had less rear axle winglets    ( https://formula1techandart.wordpress.com/2011/08/20/hrt-f111-rear-axle-winglets-revisions/ ) which provided less aerodynamic grip  to the rear axle. So keeping the shark fin could potentially cause handling issues of the rear end and even excessive ware to the rear tyres . Liuzzi returned to the standard version of F111  after China , with three winglets per rear brake and an engine cover with the shark fin .

 Karthikeyan , China

HRT F111 – More rear wing revisions in Turkey

  Turkey 

More rear wing revisions took place at Turkey with a series of 5 curved gills were put on the endplates to lower significantly drag production generated by the wing , with a small downforce loss as a side effect but giving more freedom for steeper attack angles at the same time . This was the first serious upgrade for the rear wing as the previous were only refinements of the original version . 

HRT F111 – Rear axle winglets revisions

Australia and Malaysia– asymmetric

     It is very interesting to investigate HRT rear brake winglets development over season, which reflects in some occasions the different driving style between the two drivers of the team . Initially the F111 run with asymmetric winglets (red arrows).This asymmetric configuration offers sufficient grip to the inner rear car side, which is shadowed in a right hand turn , something important to reduce rear pitch sensitivity having in mind that both  Melbourne and Sepang circuits feature more right hand turns than left ( 10R/6L  , 10R/5L  respectively) .

China – Karthikeyan

China – Liuzzi

    Later the season at China two versions of symmetric configurations were applied on the rear axle. More experienced Liuzzi raced with single winglets while Karthikeyan raced with double winglets which offered a more stable rear end .

since Turkey

   Finally since Turkey both drivers race with symmetric rear axle winglets but increased in number up to three elements at each side . The brake winglets are considered to be part of the braking system and as long as they are within FIA dimension rules are considered to be legal .

HRT F111 rear wing – minor refinements for the first races

Australia

 

       F111 rear wing is consisted of  a rather large movable flap compared to other teams with a black colored tab fence (1) across the trailing edge , two flap fasteners (2)  , gill-less endplates  and finally the wing is supported on a single vertical element (3) which also houses the flap moving mechanism .Having a closer look on the endplates we can observe the uncovered  flap angle adjuster (4) and the flap connecting spots (5) to the endplate body .

 

  Malaysia

China

 

       In China HRT decided to put elegant white colored coverings on rear wing’s flap adjusters to cut turbulence created by the anomalies on endplate surface . Meanwhile the two lower dot style flap connectors to the endplate were already covered since Malaysia( red arrows ) .

 

 

Hispania Racing Team F111 – diffuser details

    The F111 follows also the trend of exhaust blown diffuser having the exhaust pipelines ending close to the rear crash structure . There is a pair of vertical fences (in yellow) twisted outwards  in either side section of the diffuser pattern and also a high tab fence across the diffuser roof extending even to its vertical sides to improve air sanction. Of course the tab partially blocks the hot exhaust emissions preventing a stronger blending of them with the air coming from under the floor, a situation by passed by some teams, like Red Bull, Lotus Renault and Toro Rosso for example, using a slotted tab fence .

Hispania Racing : FP3 & Qualifying for the British Grand Prix

 

FP3 & Qualifying for the British Grand Prix

Silverstone, 9th of July of 2011

Silverstone Circuit

10.00-11.00 FORMULA 1 PRACTICE SESSION 3

Daniel Ricciardo        F111-03  #22  23rd     (19 laps)  1:38.289

Vitantonio Liuzzi       F111-02  #23  24th      (17 laps)  1:38.568

Maximum temperature: Air 18ºC, Track 20ºC – Intermittent rain

13.00-14.00 FORMULA 1 QUALIFYING SESSION

Daniel Ricciardo         F111-03 #22   24th     (6 laps)   1:38.059

Vitantonio Liuzzi        F111-02 #23   23rd    (7 laps)   1:37.484

Maximum temperatura: Air 20ºC, Track 23ºC – Intermittent rain

Colin Kolles, Hispania Racing Team Principal: “It was a difficult day because a lot of rain came down in FP3 and it wasn’t easy to get the set up right for qualifying. Obviously, also during qualifying it started to rain and, unfortunately, we had the wrong timing and were unable to do a second run. So this is why the result is quite disappointing”.

“Tomorrow we have to finish the race and we will see what will be the end. Today I would have expected more; we knew that it would be difficult because we had traction problems and have a lack of downforce. We had some new parts on the car but, unfortunately, it was difficult to get the right timing and to react in the right way under these circumstances”.

“If tomorrow we have what we had today then I will be happy. In free practice it’s better to have dry conditions; in qualifying it’s better to have consistent conditions, either rain or dry, and all this didn’t happen. For us, starting at the end of the grid, the best would be to have heavy rain like in Canada for the race”.

Daniel Ricciardo, Driver #22: “My first qualifying session was alright but it was a bit frustrating with the weather, we couldn’t do two runs so we were just limited to one but it was ok. I would like to be a little bit closer to the rest of the field but I can’t try to expect too much for now, it’s a big learning curve. I’m half a second off Tonio which isn’t much but for a racing car driver it is quite a lot, I want more but I shouldn’t really expect too much at this stage, if I can keep closing the gap then it’s ok”.

“The F111 is actually quite good, with the option tyres the level of grip has surprised me, that’s one part that will come from experience; knowing how far I can push it. In high speed corners I can still race at my speed. I think there’s definitely potential and if I’m able to keep an open mind and am willing to learn; I think we will definitely move forward”.

“I met the team on Wednesday and it’s been a pretty deep introduction and I think it’s gone quite smoothly, everyone seems really nice. With the engineers, it’s hard to come into Formula 1 and start a fresh relationship in the middle of a season but I think we’re doing quite well and I’m sure it gets easier from here”.

“I expect to finish the race and be competitive, if I can maybe close the gap in the race and be within a few tenths of Tonio, I think that would be a positive start and some progress. If we can get ahead of a few other cars then that would be a good result”.

Vitantonio Liuzzi, Driver #23: “It was a difficult qualifying session because of the weather but also because we’ve had an issue with the car since yesterday; the handling hasn’t been good since the beginning and the weather hasn’t helped us to understand the new bits we’ve brought on the car. It hasn’t been easy, we didn’t have the best balance for qualifying but, overall, it was the best run we’ve had all week because it was a bit better overall”.

“The race will be quite difficult because our rivals seem to be running faster than last year. We knew that this circuit wouldn’t be great for our car but we have to keep on pushing and see how it goes tomorrow”.

 

 

 

credit : Hispania Racing Team

HRT – Grand Prix of Europe

 

Grand Prix of Europe

Valencia, 26th of June of 2011

Valencia Street Circuit

Weather: Sunny – Air 28ºC, Track  47ºC

Race: 57 laps

Track distance: 5.419 km

Narain Karthikeyan   F111-03 #22  24th

Vitantonio Liuzzi        F111-02 #23  23rd

Colin Kolles, Hispania Racing Team Principal: “We struggled the whole weekend with the tyres, especially on the rear end of the car. We had to go for a three stop strategy since the wear of the tyres was too high; our main competitors were on two stops. The pace overall was good but due to the additional stop we could not gain positions. We have to work hard, especially in improving the aero and the rear end of the car, in order to reach our targets for the championship”.

Narain Karthikeyan, Driver #22: “As expected, the car was quite difficult to drive in the race because of the heat; the rear tyres were degrading a lot and we had the same braking problems as the whole weekend. At the beginning I was trying to keep with the pack, with Liuzzi and D’Ambrosio, but after seven laps I locked the front and after that I had a lonely race. I finished the race but there aren’t many positives I can take away from it”.

“Obviously our performance wasn’t the best but the local support has been great and we were hoping for more here”.

Vitantonio Liuzzi, Driver #23: “It was a really difficult race for us because we were struggling with the rear tyres. We knew since Friday that it would be difficult because we were overheating the rear and this was wearing the tyres out even more and that is why we were forced to do a three stop strategy and, unfortunately, were unable to cope with the Virgins. In the first two stints we were fighting with them but then, because we stopped one more time than them, we were struggling to fight with them”.

“We need to fight hard if we want to keep up with the pace of our competitors, we need to improve and work hard day and night. It’s a shame because we were in front of our crowd, they have been fantastic with us but we need to push for the rest of the season”.

“The weekend was really tough but beautiful because Valencia has been a fantastic city that has welcomed us really well. We had a beautiful week, it’s a shame because we wanted to achieve a better result but now we are fighting for the future”.

 

 

credit : Hispania Racing Team

 

HRT – Finally an update for F111

      HRT F111 nose box-front wing part failed to pass FIA crash test and thus the team reverted back to the F110 thinner nose box and front wing version for the first 2011 race in Melbourne . In Sepang finally the new parts managed to make it to the track and HRT successfully qualified within the 107 % rule and got the green light to race for the first time this season. The new nose is much wider and more boxy and has the “hammerhead” style camera winglets like Williams and Red Bull do . The new wing is totally new, speaking for the flaps and mini winglets, but the endplates resemble a lot to the old version instead .

       HRT during 2010 season showed very poor development failing to update its front wing not even once , racing the launch version from start to finish even at ultra low downforce track of Monza, something that HRT wants to change in 2011 .