HRT get wing approval

Equipped with last season's wing at Melbourne a fortnight ago, neither Vitantonio Liuzzi nor Narain Kathikeyan started the race after falling foul of the reintroduced '107 percent rule' during the first qualifying session.

Under the ruling, shelved last year to facilitate the three new teams that entered the sport, if a car fails to clock a time within 107 percent of the leader in the first round of qualifying, they will be unable to line up for the race itself.

HRT, yet to score a point since entering Formula One at the start of 2010, announced on Thursday that the revised front wing had passed governing body FIA's crash tests and was being shipped to Malaysia for the second round of the championship.

"Everything has been okayed from today, so we should receive it (the wing) before the beginning of the session tomorrow (Friday)," Italian Liuzzi told reporters on Thursday.
"We have a lot of new parts arriving and we are positive we will be in a much better shape than in Australia."

Liuzzi believes the new wing will make the HRT 0.7 seconds quicker per lap but remains realistic over his chances of actually starting on Sunday.

"We cannot say we will be inside for the race, but I am sure we will be really close to Virgin and will close the gap," he added.

"Here in Malaysia, it is the worst track for 107 percent, but I am pretty sure that if we will not get in, the other teams will struggle, because our pace will improve a lot and we will reduce the gap to our competitors."

Liuzzi admitted a lack of preparation for the season-opening race in Melbourne had severely hindered the team's chance but expects both he and Kathikeyan to produce much faster times with the 2011 car now complete. "We had issues because we couldn't use the front wing that was supposed to be developed for the car for the rest of the aerodynamics, plus there were some other issues," the 29-year-old added.