The cash-strapped outfit have always been marginal with their budget, but a fourth season has proved to be a step too far. Entering the sport in 2010 with two other new teams, they hold an unenviable record of never scoring a point in their short tenure. That distinction is shared also by Caterham and Marussia, the other newbies, but the former; backed by Malaysian govornment and business supremo Tony Fernandes have made reasonable strides towards their first elusive point in F1, as too, have Marussia.
Other minor teams have come and gone, some more succesful, some similarly fated, and in terms of their length of stay it looks like HRT have ranked somewhere in the middle. A story that still breaks my heart to this day is that of Minardi. The tiny Italian outfit roamed the F1 circus for 21 years before being bought by Red Bull. They rather sportingly continued the Italian Tradition, dubbing them 'Toro Rosso' but before those days money was always a problem. At the other end of the spectrum is Mastercard Lola. They failed to qualify for the 1997 Australian GP and then quit, comparatively making HRT look ever-present.
HRT ran almost entirely without sponsorship for the duration of their stay in Formula One. Their first challenger, the 'F110' was dark grey, with white lines along the contours of the chassis; however they changed the white to a more Spanish red colour after their home event. In the vain of Jordan F1's final season, the team opted to run with their' drivers' first names on the side of the car in their inaugural season. This generally made the livery appear more cluttered, but distracted audiences from the lack of funding. Their only major sponsor was Brazilian bank 'Cruzeiro do Sol'.
In 2011 they hired a Holywood designer - Daniel Simon, to add a new image to the car. Unfortunately, motifs of "Cool Spot" and "This could be you" were not enough to tempt any more sponsors, and the livery remained relatively unchanged all season. Their final car was mainly white with gold and red streaks and was proabably the most handsome of the three, but no better performances came from it.
The team were never really competitive and fell outside of the 107% rule X times. Both Karthikeyan and Liuzzi did this at the 2011 Australian Grand prix. They repeated this again in Monaco that year but were allowed to take part given that their practice times were 'fast' enough. The first race of the year proved troublesome again in 2012 and they had to sit out the Aussie race again. Karthikeyan was too slow in Spain but allowed to take part. The last time they did this was Korea 2012. Their best position was an ironically lucky 13th place in the incidedent-packed 2011 Canadian GP, thanks to Tonio Liuzzi.
HRT DRIVERS
2010
Karun Chandhok
Bruno Senna
Christian Klien
Sakon Yamamoto
2011
Narain Karthikeyan
Vitantonio Liuzzi
Daniel Ricciardo
2012
Pedro de la Rosa
Narain Karthikeyan
It's unfortunate that you're leaving F1, Hispania. You were fun to have, but often lapped, out and a mobile chicane. Perhaps it was just your time. Fare thee well, Spanish Minnows!
