Ecclestone welcomes Chandhok, Massa slams new teams

Bernie Ecclestone has welcomed Karun Chandhok to the cockpit of the new formula one team HRT.

The Spanish outfit is in the midst of an intense scrabble to Bahrain after nearly collapsing before a wheel was turned, but has signed Indian GP2 driver Chandhok to be fellow rookie Bruno Senna’s teammate.

At the same time, one of F1 chief executive Ecclestone’s acknowledged objectives is to better encapsulate the potential of India’s huge population and burgeoning market.

“We have an Indian F1 team on the grid, we will have an Indian grand prix … in 2011 and so it seems only right that there should be an Indian driver in formula one,” the 79-year-old said in a statement.

But after Ferrari bitterly slammed the influx of struggling new teams in 2010 including Lotus and Virgin, its Brazilian driver was on message in a new interview with Corriere della Sera.

“There are 6-7 teams one second apart while those teams are 4 seconds behind,” said Felipe Massa.  “It’s not good for the sport and not good for them: it’s like two different series.  They’ll suffer.

“And we’ll suffer too, when we have them in front of us during qualifying,” he added.

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