Senna thinks that HRT will be faster than Lotus and Virgin

Bruno Senna expressed confidence that HRT F1 can be faster than the other new teams Lotus and Virgin.

Hispania Racing Team presented its drivers Senna and Chandhok on Thursday and unveiled its car whose chassis was designed by Dallara. The car did not undergo any pre-season testing, but by comparing the test times of Lotus and Virgin to those of Dallara’s GP2 car, Bruno Senna believes the car could be faster.

In Barcelona, Lotus and Virgin were just one second faster than the GP2 cars, about which Dallara knows all the details, explained Ayrton’s nephew in the Motorsport Magazin. And according to their calculations, we should be two seconds faster compared to the GP2 cars.

However, Senna is well aware that reliability will be a major factor in the early races. Of course, a lot will depend on the reliability of the car from the start to the finish. I hope that, with Dallara’s experience and a bit of luck, some of the problems new teams encounter, particularly with the hydraulic system, will not affect us.

The HRT team will race for the first time in its young existence during the first free practice session next Friday, at the Bahrain Grand Prix for the opening of the 2010 season.