HRT hits sporting scrapheap

The HRT Formula One team hit the sporting scrapheap on Friday with five of their cars, minus engines and gearboxes, sold to a Spanish auto-breaker and another going to Pirelli for promotional purposes.

Teo Martin, owner of a Madrid-based auto-recycling and parts company that bears his name, told Reuters by telephone that he had bought most of the material assets of the failed Spanish-registered team.

He said the direct sale included three 2012 cars raced by Indian Narain Karthi­keyan and Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa, without the Cosworth engines and Williams gearboxes which have been returned to those companies.

A Cosworth spokesman, whose only remaining customer on the Formula One grid is HRT’s former tail-end rivals Marussia, confirmed the engines had been recovered by them.
Martin said he also had two 2011 cars, one complete, and a scale model of the 2012 car as well as most of the garage equipment.

“The other 2011 car has gone to Pirelli,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Italian company said it would be repainted in Pirelli’s black and yellow colours and used as a static ‘show car’ on display in dealerships and at promotional events.

Pirelli have a 2010 Renault car for use in private tyre testing after entering the sport as sole supplier in 2011 and using a 2009 Toyota.

Martin, whose company posted a photograph of one of the cars on the Twitter feed @DesguacesTeo, wou­ld not reveal how much he had paid for the cars but said he intended to sell them on to any interested parties.

HRT, who struggled with a shortage of resources and parts, failed to score a point in three years in Formula One and missed a November deadline to pay entry fees of $500,000 for this season.