Sunday: HRT still behind Marussia before the break
Before taking a few days off to tackle the final stretch with full energy, the HRT drivers return empty-handed from Hungary where they were not really able to compete with Marussia.
Pedro de la Rosa – 22nd:
It was a tough but enjoyable race. It was very hot, but we had a good pace. We went with a two-stop strategy, starting on Medium tires, then another set of Mediums before switching to Softs. Towards the end, I had Glock in sight and he was locking his wheels a lot, but the race ended before I could overtake him. The blue flags didn’t help me much either. Overall, I’m happy, but it was a survival race.
For the second part of the season, we have some new developments planned that, we hope, will help us make the leap forward we need to get ahead of Marussia. Now, we need to rest for a few days in order to come back with fully recharged batteries.
Narain Karthikeyan – 23rd:
I had a good start to the race, I was on Pedro’s pace, and I was ahead of Glock after his spin. But after the first stop, he was very strong on Soft tires, I was on Mediums, and he overtook me. It was also very complicated to deal with the blue flags, especially because there were many of them.
With five laps to go, the car was pulling to the right, it was getting worse, and coming out of turn #3, the steering broke, so we need to find out exactly what happened. It was a difficult race but we must keep working to improve when we return after the summer break.
