Melbourne: Narain Karthikeyan endure a difficult first day back in office in the rain-affected opening weekend of the 2012 Formula 1 season which kicked off at the Albert Park circuit here.
Behind the wheel of the HRT F112 – the team’s challenger for the 2012 season, mechanical niggles combined with the unpredictable weather conditions caught the team by surprise as Karthikeyan put the all-new chassis through its first steps on Friday.
Being an all-new design, mechanical issues weren’t completely unexpected though but the team would’ve much preferred a straight-forward dry weekend, as Karthikeyan elaborates:
“The mixed conditions really caught us out – it was never completely dry. That isn’t usually a problem but since the forecast predicts dry weather for the rest of the weekend, we would essentially be starting over come Saturday.
“There was a fuel pressure issue in FP1, and a hydraulics issue in FP2 – nothing major, as some niggles are expected on a brand-new car. These issues generally crop up and fixed in pre-season tests but since we are effectively testing on the race weekend, we have to deal with them now.”
Also considering that he has been out of an F1 car for over four months since the Indian GP last year, barring a few kilometres of mileage done during a filming day in Barcelona last week, Karthikeyan conceded that he would take some time to settle in.
“Of course problems get accentuated under changeable conditions; it is difficult to follow a programme as you need to keep swapping tyre compounds depending on track conditions and so on.
“It isn’t easy do a string of continuous laps and get into a rhythm which is ideally needed after being out of the car for so long.”
Both practice sessions combined, Karthikeyan completed a total of 19 laps of the Albert Park Circuit which enabled the team to gather some useful data and eradicate problems that cropped up during the course of Friday running.
The Indian also managed to do a short run on the prime slick tyre (medium compound), being the first driver to switch from the favoured intermediates while the track was still damp.However, an untimely cooling issue left him sitting in the garage at the time when the track was rapidly drying towards the fag end of the second session.
“It was good to get some hard running under my belt, including a few laps on the prime tyre but the track surface was still very low on grip. Later, we switched to softs in the final ten minutes but a hydraulic issue resulted in a long stop and there wasn’t enough time to get back on track.
“It’s a shame really since the track was improving all the time and was at its best at the end of the session.”
Under these circumstances, there is no denying the fact that it is going to be a tough opening weekend for Karthikeyan and the HRT F1 team as they bracethemselves for a tough outing down under.
“It is definitely going to be challenging, but I am optimistic since it is better to have these issuesduring Friday practiceinstead of race day. I’m not saying we’ve detected and fixed everythingas something else may go awry but we have to understand it is an early stage for everyone.
“The team pulled an all-nighter to get the cars out on track today so we aren’t lacking in effort, we just need to be patient and ensure that we get the basics right and improve on from there. We knew what we were in for, so its chin up and looking ahead for tomorrow.”
By Indian Sports News Network
