HRT fails to find buyer
before 2013 Formula 1 entry deadline
| By Edd Straw |
Saturday, December 1st 2012, 17:44
GMT |
 The HRT Formula 1 team looks set to
officially close down after failing to find a buyer before the
FIA's payment deadline for 2013 entries on Friday.
The squad was absent from the 22-car entry list published
by the governing body on Saturday.
HRT had been put
up for sale by owner Thesan Capital just before the United
States Grand Prix.
Attempts were made to find a buyer before the entry
deadline. AUTOSPORT understands that Chinese company Chery
Automobile among those involved in talks to save HRT.
Sources indicate that the team is now working to pay its
creditors and that the plan is for the team to shut down
without unpaid debts.
Team representatives declined to comment on the current
situation.
HRT was originally launched as Campos
Meta by former F1 driver Adrian Campos when the FIA
invited new entries for the 2010 season.
But its first reconstitution happened before it even made
the grid, as former Jordan/Midland boss Colin Kolles was parachuted
in to lead a last-minute rescue when the project hit
funding problems.
Kolles saw the renamed Hispania team through to the middle
of the 2011 season, when it was bought
by Thesan.
It was relocated to a Madrid base in an attempt to revive
the Spanish team image that Campos had originally planned,
with Luis Perez-Sala installed as team boss.
Designing its own car for the first time after adapting a
Dallara-produced chassis in its early years, HRT hinted at
progress in 2012 as it briefly closed on Marussia.
But it drifted away at the tail of the field by the end of
the year, with its funding problems clearly apparent as tales
of parts shortages dominated what turned out to be its final
races.
HRT had beaten Marussia to 11th spot in the constructors'
championship in its first two years, before falling to last in
2012.
It is the first F1 team to close down since Super
Aguri's mid-2008 exit.
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