De la Rosa signs with Ferrari

Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa has signed a deal with Ferrari, to become their development driver.

The former HRT driver, who until today was unemployed when the Spanish team folded last year, will take on the role as development driver for the Italian marquee, the team said Wednesday. Pedr de la Rosa has had a long career as test and reserve driver, starting at Jordan in 1998, then went to Arrows for 1999 and scored his first championship point in the Australian Grand Prix that year. For 2001 de la Rosa signed a three year deal with Jaguar, but the effort ended with a goodbye a year earlier, as the results didn´t show. Between 2003 and 2009, Pedro de la Rosa was working with McLaren, both as test and reserve driver, but also as race driver. Juan Pablo Montoya injured his shoulder and de la Rosa took over the car, leading to a fifth place in the Bahrain GP.

From 2010 to 2011, de la Rosa was hired by BMW Sauber/Sauber and drove 14 races for the swiss team, was dropped in favour of Nick Heidfeld, a move that was seen as not tought through by Sauber. De la Rosa then replaced Heidfeld as test driver for Pirelli, but was soon back in action when Sergio Perez got injured during the Monaco GP, so the Spaniard raced the Canadian GP, eventually finishing 12th after torrential downpour had red-flagged the race.

Pedro de la Rosa returned to McLaren as test driver for 2011, and for 2012 it was announced that he would form one half of the driver line-up at HRT, the team that never really got the hang of things. As the HRT team folded last year, de la Rosa was without a job, until Ferrari picked him up.

The team also announced that they will reveal their 2013 challenger on February 1, at Maranello, the same day Force India reveals their car.

Pedro de la Rosa: It was my own fault

HRT´s Pedro de la Rosa has taken all the blame for the crash he suffered in Friday´s second practice session this afternoon.

At Turn 14, about halfway through the session, Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa smashed his car in the tyre barrier, destroying the frontwing and damaging the front suspension. Quickly after the shunt, the left-front brake disc caught on fire, leaving everyone to believe that caused the error. However, de la Rosa has admitted that he made a driver error.

“In the first session our weakest point was braking, as we were locking the front and rear tyres,” said Pedro de la Rosa. “We improved notably in the afternoon after making some changes and you could feel it straight away.

“The session was going well but I made a mistake and went off track which, unfortunately, damaged the entire front suspension. My session ended there and we were unable to test neither the Soft tyres nor many things which we had in mind, but I’m keeping the positive aspect which is that we improved the car.

“I’m well and my mechanics are already repairing the car; they’re extraordinary professionals and everything will be ready again tomorrow to give it our best go once more in front of our home fans.”

Massive shunt for de la Rosa – video

Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa´s second free practice session in Valencia, ended in the wall as his HRT racer suddenly veered off the track.

Just about halfway through the second free practice session ahead of the European Grand Prix in Valencia, HRT´s Pedro de la Rosa suddenly left the track and plowed into the tyre barrier, damaging the front suspension. The on-board footage doesn´t reveal anything wrong and the incident happened at a part of the track, Turn 14, where the top speed isn´t much more than 140 km/h. Pedro de la Rosa was able to climb from the car and was not injured.

Looking at the video footage from outside the car, it could look like the floor hit the tarmac causing the steering to fail. Either that or a technical issue.

Spanish Grand Prix preview – HRT

HRT is still chasing that first point, but that could be a little further away than expected. As most teams opted to try out new updates at Mugello last week, HRT instead focused on moving their headquarters from Cologne to Madrid. As there were no updates to bring, there were no reason to go, said the team.

“The Spanish Grand Prix is the most important trace for a Spanish driver, but this time it will be even more special for me because I’m racing with a Spanish team in my city of birth,” said Pedro de la Rosa, who has been involved i F1 since 1999. “At this circuit aerodynamics are important and it will be an important test for our upgrades. The track is also very tough on the tyres. Not going to Mugello wasn’t an easy decision but it was important to go to the headquarters for the first time and work calmly because it’s the first time my car is in Europe. For the first time the mechanics have had the time to dismantle the car, build it and assemble it. In Barcelona we are going to try and do the best we can, as always, but even more so at this Grand Prix. We’re playing at home in front of the best fans in the world. We’re looking forward to it and it’s something historic for so I’m going to enjoy it as much as possible”.

Narain Karthikeyan:

“Catalunya is a great all-round circuit, highly demanding and aero dependent. It is a track I know well, and it is the first time this season we have the hard and soft tyre allocated, so the gap in lap times will be significant and strategy will play a deciding role. We don’t know the specifics of tyre behaviour since we didn’t test pre-season, but as the compounds are softer this year, the degradation, especially on the soft, will be high because of the high-lateral loading through corners like turn three. The circuit is aero sensitive too, because of the high amount of winds which often change direction so getting the setup right early on will be crucial. There are a few upgrades coming as well which will help us unlock some more performance from the car and give us the ability to compete with our closest rivals. It is the first of our team’s home races so we are motivated to do our best.”

HRT brings updates for Barcelona

The HRT team have opted not to participate in the up-coming test at Mugello next week, but are instead concentrating their focus on moving headquarters to Madrid in Spain. But they will bring some updates for the Spanish Grand Prix.

It is a well-known fact that HRT is the smallest team on the grid, and the financial difficulties are also a subject to much debate. It was rather surprising to read that the team did not wish to participate in the test at Mugello, from May 1 to May 3, but in the few statements that actually do emanates from the team, they deny that financial issues is the main reason to miss the test.

Instead if testing along with the other teams, they believe that the time spent in the factory, will give a bigger boost in performance than actually testing. And for the fifth round of the championship, the Spanish Grand Prix up next, they will bring some updates, says Pedro de la Rosa.

“I think now we have some time to go back to base, and when I say base, it is our new base, which is important because finally we have our home,” de la Rosa said.

“We need to still develop the car, but we can now spend time in the wind tunnel, and spend time optimising the set-up. We know our weaknesses, and these few races have been like the pre-season for us. We were three months too late and have been paying the price for that.

“I think we have a solid structure underneath us now, and the result in Bahrain was an unexpected bonus because nobody was expecting us to out-qualify a Marussia or finish races like in Malaysia.

“I am looking forward to the rest of the season, because we have more time to develop what is a solid platform. We have to improve, but we have the people and the factory now.

“There is stability that we didn’t have a few months ago – or even a few weeks ago. It is a new start – now we can say we are starting properly.”

The idea of testing at Mugello, is of course to test the new updates the teams are bringing, and since HRT doesn´t have the updates ready until after the test is complete, there is no point in going, says Narain Karthikeyan.

“We are one of the smallest teams in the paddock and our aim is to close the gap to Marussia and the other teams immediately in front of us,” said Karthikeyan.

“We would have had nothing new to test in Mugello as the upgrades to the car will only be ready by the Spanish GP a week later. So hopefully, we can keep improving the car and by the time the Indian GP rolls around in October, we should be a bit more competitive.”

HRT awaiting crash test results

Backmarkers HRT are right now testing their slightly updated 2011 car at Jerez, along with ten other teams, but the real focus is probably on the mandatory FIA crash test, the 2012 car is undergoing these days.

From this season every new car must pass a mandatory crash test, before any test runs are initiated. Since it´s formation, the HRT team has failed to participate in any of the pre-season tests, but they are hoping that the FIA will give the green light for the 2012 contender.

Pedro de la Rosa, one of HRT´s drivers for this season, told Spanish daily Marca that he doesn´t expect the gap to be as big as it is now, with the 2011 car around four seconds slower than the rest.

“If it passes, we will have the car at the next test in Barcelona,” said de la Rosa.

“It will be a car which will not be as far behind as we are now, these four seconds,” he said on Tuesday, “but we are not expecting other miracles.”

 

Pedro de la Rosa signs with HRT

Rather surprisingly, Pedro de la Rosa has signed a contract with HRT, for a race seast in 2012.

Since being dropped by Sauber before the Singapore GP last year, the 40 year-old Spaniard has been out of a drive and everyone thought that was that. But the on-and-off McLaren tester has now landed a contract for at least one season.

“This is a very important step in my sporting career and one of the most meditated ones I’ve taken,” said de la Rosa on Monday.

“I’m at a very good stage in terms of maturity and am prepared to take on this challenge, which motivates me hugely.

“When deciding on joining this project, for me there were three decisive factors: my desire to return to the active competition, the fact that HRT is a Spanish team and getting to know the people leading this project, Luis Pérez-Sala being amongst them.

It´s not exactly certain how long the contract is for, but de la Rosa strongly indicates that it´s for two years.

“I’m here to work hard, with modesty and humility, accepting where we are now but keeping in mind where we want to be in 2 years time. For me, this is the time to put into practice everything that I have learnt over the years at international top level racing teams so that we can grow together.

“I am proud that Spain has an F1 team and that I have this opportunity to be its driver. I can only show my gratitude towards HRT for having trusted in me for this.”

The soon-to-be 41 year-old has competed in 86 races, have notched up 35 career points and one podium.