Hispania Racing Team’s revelation of a failed crash test has come as a big setback for Narain Karthikeyan. The Indian ace had been hoping to get behind the wheel of HRT’s 2012 car at Barcelona from February 21, but Thursday’s crash test failure means the machine will not be allowed to run at the second official pre-season test.
While rest of the teams ran their new challenger at the ongoing opening test at Jerez, HRT are using their 2011 car and the Spanish team are set continue this at Barcelona as well.
From 2012, all F1 cars must pass the mandatory FIA crash tests before being allowed to take part in pre-season testing. Previously, passing the crash tests was only a requirement prior to the season opener.
Although the HRT car passed 14 other tests successfully and the chassis was approved, the nose and roll hop failed to get FIA’s approval. “Chassis approved but the two that failed (by minor margin) prevent us to have the car ready for the first Barcelona test,” a team official said.
Narain, who had to wait until the season-opener in Australia last year to drive the new car, is now expected to drive HRT’s 2011 car at the Barcelona test so that he, at least, gets used to the new compounds of Pirelli tyres with a higher rate of degradation.