Chandhock

[Sonic]

Just felt like it was time this gentleman had his own thread. Having achieved a last minute call up to F1, with no testing and no mileage he has been doing very well. Out qualifying his more fancied team mate last time out and doing well here in china too.

:up:

[maximilian]

So far, so good. His crash in the opening race was a real low point, but other than that he's done well compared to the much higher estimated Senna, and by no means disgraced himself, also giving Hispania their first finish.

[truefan72]

performing better than i thought. good for him.

On a related subject, I think by the end of the year that hRT car will be the best of the 3 new teams. Yeah its slow, but it is fundamentally well built and I think updates will increase performance

[Allyc85]

Yea hes done very well, much better than I thought :D


performing better than i thought. good for him.

, but it is fundamentally well built and I think updates will increase performance

ROFL have you not read the last few press releases about the car. Its said to be less high tech than an F3 car in places!

On a related subject, I think by the end of the year that hRT car will be the best of the 3 new teams. Yeah its slow, but it is fundamentally well built and I think updates will increase performance

Erm, that's not what the team have said this week.

[truefan72]

Yea hes done very well, much better than I thought :D



ROFL have you not read the last few press releases about the car. Its said to be less high tech than an F3 car in places!


Erm, that's not what the team have said this week.

mark my words ;)

they will come out ontop

[Retro Formula 1]

Well, I respect all opinions Truefan but I think you're on a hiding to nothing with this one.

Personally, I think they will either fold or need to re-engineer the whole car back to basics. The only option there is would be to partner with a top team as FI did but who is the question?

[steveaki13]

I have been pleasantly suprised by Hispania (Not as far off the pace as I thought) and Chandhok in particular.

[F1boat]

He is driving very well, although I support Bruno in that team battle :)

[christophulus]

He's driving well in a lousy car, and as an added bonus is blatantly ignoring the Chinese Twitter ban, so good on him :up:

http://twitter.com/karunchandhok

[jens]

On a related subject, I think by the end of the year that hRT car will be the best of the 3 new teams. Yeah its slow, but it is fundamentally well built and I think updates will increase performance

It has been announced that Dallara isn't working on this car any more. The only way HRT is going to improve anywhere is that if they had their own infrastructure for development, but even that would take some time to establish. Dallara isn't interested in having a long-term involvement in the project - they only built a basic car for the team to have any kind of a starting platform. And besides that considering that Dallara is active in spec-series, their engineers don't have much clue, how to suddenly keep improving a car in a competiton anyway.

Chandhok - I suspect his F1 career is going to end after this HRT stint anyway, unless a bit more established team feels that they need a paydriver. How well exactly he and Senna are driving, is quite difficult to tell given the situation, but I don't see either of them as a world-beater. But Karun has been more competitive against Bruno than I would have expected, that much is true. :)

[keysersoze]

After languishing 10 seconds off the pace in Bahrain, Hispania is now within 6 seconds of pole speed, but they really need an experienced driver to test the car. I just don't see them getting much closer, except at Monaco.

[jens]

After languishing 10 seconds off the pace in Bahrain, Hispania is now within 6 seconds of pole speed, but they really need an experienced driver to test the car.

Well, they have hired Yamamoto as their third driver (funny, how this guy keeps popping up in F1 every now and then :D ) - he has a bit of experience, at Spyker and Renault. Wonder, how much will that help. :p :

[keysersoze]

Well, they have hired Yamamoto as their third driver (funny, how this guy keeps popping up in F1 every now and then :D ) - he has a bit of experience, at Spyker and Renault. Wonder, how much will that help. :p :

Yes, I'm sure the team is relieved to have found the missing piece. Perhaps they'll prove me wrong and be in Q3 by June. :p :

[Nikki Katz]

Hehehe, when they said that they were hiring a third driver to give them some sort of experience with the car I assumed that it wouldn't be a huge name, but I thought it would be a bigger one than that! I don't really see what Sakon would add, I'm sure that by mid-season both drivers will have achieved more than he ever did.

Chandhok was Senna's teammate in GP2 a couple of years ago wasn't he? From what I remember, Chandhok was fairly regularly quicker than Senna, but he had very little consistency, which is why Senna was an albeit distant championship hope, Chandhok finished in the midfield.

Senna's not really more experienced than Chandhok anyway - he started racing at a very young age but quit following Ayrton's death. He didn't start racing full time again until 2005 when he joined British F3. Chandhok arrived in British F3 in 2002.

[rohanweb]

moreover results so far states that Chandhok is fasterthan senna and I think HRT are doing very well compared to old days Minardi who has been there regularly making the back of the grid with lots of experience, given the no expereince HRT as a team is adopted not bad though !!it is funny they have hired Yamamoto LoL ..couldnt they find someonemore experienced like Ralf Schumacher to test the car well, oh nextseason comes the oldguard Rubino will be up for a develper job :-))

Chandhok must try and persue his country man Dr Vijay Malya for that 2nd seat of force india, Adrian Sutil is untouchable as he is very quick and i am not sure about the 2nd car driver, if chandhok can impress this year with HRT then there is a chance next year

[steveaki13]

Well, they have hired Yamamoto as their third driver (funny, how this guy keeps popping up in F1 every now and then :D ) - he has a bit of experience, at Spyker and Renault. Wonder, how much will that help. :p :

Even more experienced if you add in his time at Super Aguri. :)

[jens]

Chandhok must try and persue his country man Dr Vijay Malya for that 2nd seat of force india, Adrian Sutil is untouchable as he is very quick and i am not sure about the 2nd car driver, if chandhok can impress this year with HRT then there is a chance next year

I fully expect Mallya to prefer di Resta over Chandhok.

[Sonic]

I fully expect Mallya to prefer di Resta over Chandhok.

Yes, because its gonna be very hard to hold onto Sutil soon - his stock is rising and I expect Merc to come-a-knocking one day soon.

[jens]

Yes, because its gonna be very hard to hold onto Sutil soon - his stock is rising and I expect Merc to come-a-knocking one day soon.

Sutil to Mercedes? Somehow I'd expect a few people to be in front of him in the Mercedes wish-list, but who knows - maybe Sutil will grow into another Massa.

[Storm]

He is quietly going about his job and doing it pretty well.

No testing, no laps in practise and a 2nd lap crash in the opening race followed by decent finishes in the next 2 and in front of Senna too.

And he has a slow car, but he knows how to use his mirrors!!
never seen him get in the way of the front pack in any race, which cannot be said for most rookies over the years.

Karun :up:

[jens]

Somehow Senna was much faster than Chandhok in China, actually lapping him. What I have seen so far is that the advantage keeps swinging massively from one driver to another. Firstly a sign of an inconsistent and underdeveloped car, but neither of the drivers seems to be capable of putting in consistent drives either for whatever reason.