As the world was awaiting confirmation of a deal for the 2011 Formula 1 season between the Hispania Racing Team and Toyota Motorsport on Monday, a media statement issued by Toyota says that the deal has collapsed over unpaid bills.
This means that the unraced Toyota TF110 will not form the basis of the 2011 Hispania Racing Team F1 car.
A statement issued today reads as follows:
“Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG of Cologne, Germany) confirms that all cooperation with Hispania Racing F1 Team (HRT) has been terminated and will not resume.
TMG retains all intellectual property rights to its current F1 car and is completely free to pursue other projects and support new customers for its high-performance engineering services.
TMG regrets that HRT has not met its contractual payment obligations and will pursue all available options to reach a satisfactory conclusion to this matter.”
Even our conversation with Toyota Motorsport Technical Director Pascal Vasselon two weeks ago led us to believe that the small Spanish team was a clear favorite to run the Toyota F1 car.
Since Hispania does not have the capacity to design and construct its own car, this news means that HRT has very limited options for 2011.
Hispania fell out with Dallara, which designed this year’s F110. This means that Lola is out of the equation.
HRT could subcontract their 2011 car to specialized companies such as Lola, Dome, Swift and Epsilon Euskadi. But the small team is clearly running out of time.
Late Monday, HRT issued a statement saying: "Hispania Racing is very surprised about Toyota's Press Statement released this afternoon and this matter will be a subject of further clarification."
This means that the unraced Toyota TF110 will not form the basis of the 2011 Hispania Racing Team F1 car.
A statement issued today reads as follows:
“Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG of Cologne, Germany) confirms that all cooperation with Hispania Racing F1 Team (HRT) has been terminated and will not resume.
TMG retains all intellectual property rights to its current F1 car and is completely free to pursue other projects and support new customers for its high-performance engineering services.
TMG regrets that HRT has not met its contractual payment obligations and will pursue all available options to reach a satisfactory conclusion to this matter.”
Even our conversation with Toyota Motorsport Technical Director Pascal Vasselon two weeks ago led us to believe that the small Spanish team was a clear favorite to run the Toyota F1 car.
Since Hispania does not have the capacity to design and construct its own car, this news means that HRT has very limited options for 2011.
Hispania fell out with Dallara, which designed this year’s F110. This means that Lola is out of the equation.
HRT could subcontract their 2011 car to specialized companies such as Lola, Dome, Swift and Epsilon Euskadi. But the small team is clearly running out of time.
Late Monday, HRT issued a statement saying: "Hispania Racing is very surprised about Toyota's Press Statement released this afternoon and this matter will be a subject of further clarification."