Colin Kolles has what it takes

Colin Kolles, 43 years old, is an atypical figure in the paddock: “I think others believe that Colin Kolles is crazy,” says the HRT team director himself to the site motorline.cc.

Son of a dentist mother – and himself trained as a dentist – and an engineer and rally driver father, Colin Kolles founded the Kolles Racing Team in Germany’s Formula 3 in 2000 before being appointed, in 2005, Executive Director of the Jordan team, renamed Midland after its acquisition by Russian steel magnate Alex Shnaider. Since then, the man who holds dual Romanian and German nationality, although known for being headstrong, saw the Silverstone outfit pass under the banners of Spyker and then Force India. Stripped of his role as Team Principal with the arrival of Vijay Mallya at the helm of the team, Kolles resigned from his director position in October 2009 before bouncing back, in 2010, at the head of the Hispania team, where he replaced Adrian Campos following the acquisition of the Spanish structure by José-Ramon Carabante.

As Team Principal of the team based in Murcia, the man has frequently drawn attention to his team and acted as a disruptor in Formula One. Last January, the Spanish team left the association of constructors, the FOTA, citing it neglected smaller teams, although FOTA defended itself by stating that HRT hadn’t paid its participation fees. The team also made headlines by charging for race seats with Nairan Karthikeyan as a driver and also for test days by giving time to Mondini, a figure unfamiliar to many F1 observers. Colin Kolles was then the only Team Principal wanting to protest against the blown exhausts after the Monaco Grand Prix, although he never followed through before stating a few days ago that he wanted to negotiate the Concorde Agreements on his own, thus playing the role of a troublemaker in the current negotiations between Bernie Ecclestone and the FOTA member teams.

Colin Kolles would therefore drag around in the paddock a reputation as a madman, of which he necessarily has a little idea of the origins: I have balls because I say and do what I think.

The boss of the HRT team goes even further: Many of these gentlemen [editor’s note: team principals] are just administrators and have nothing in their pants. They are like bank employees. That’s the difference, and that’s why I’m called crazy or lunatic or whatever else.

Of course, naturally contrasting with this strong opposition he maintains with his counterparts, Colin Kolles shares his good relationship with Formula One’s chief financier: « Bernie Ecclestone knows how much I respect him: that’s what matters. »

Thus, more than madness, Colin Kolles is making a strategic positioning in the latent confrontation between Bernie Ecclestone and the FOTA, surrounding the future Concorde Agreements, betting on the British man’s final victory and thus seeking to secure a future for his team.