HRT to announce Suzuka drivers ‘soon’ – team

HRT will publish the names of its race drivers for the Japanese grand prix “as soon as possible”, a team spokesman said on Wednesday.

The struggling Spanish outfit sent out a confusing message on Tuesday by issuing a pre-Suzuka press release that didn’t mention any of its four contracted drivers.

Team boss Colin Kolles later clarified that the lineup will be Bruno Senna alongside Sakon Yamamoto, but declined to guarantee the pair will actually drive all weekend in Japan.

A team spokesman then said that after travelling from Europe to Japan, he will endeavour to provide driver’s quotes to the media “as soon as possible”.

Another team spokesperson told Auto Motor und Sport that HRT is not planning to change its regular driver lineup for Suzuka, after Christian Klien replaced Yamamoto in Singapore because the Japanese apparently had food poisoning.

“As normal it will be Sakon Yamamoto and Bruno Senna,” she said.

Austrian media reports said reserve driver Klien travelled to Japan on Tuesday.

As far as the FIA is concerned, Yamamoto will be at the wheel of one of the Cosworth-powered F110s this weekend, having summoned him to Thursday afternoon’s official press conference.

“But no knowing if that means he’ll be in the car on Friday,” wrote BBC commentator Jonathan Legard on Twitter.  “Sushi food poisoning this time?”

 © RIF | GMM