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Hispania cuts ties with chassis supplier

FORMULA One team Hispania ended its collaboration with chassis designer Dallara today, just six races into a 2010 season in which had falled off the pace even of fellow F1 newcomers.

Hispania said that it will further develop the chassis itself for the remainder of the season, with a new technical partner expected to help design and build the 2011 car.

The brief relationship between Hispania and Dallara had been a difficult one.

Prior to the season, when Hispania's predecessor Campos Meta was in financial difficulty and seeking new investment - which ultimately led to the Hispania takeover - there were reports of missed payments to Dallara.

That was acknowledged by Hispania today as it thanked the Italian company for its patience and delivering the cars in the nick of time before the season opener in Bahrain.

The delivery was so late that the cars had not turned a wheel before the Friday practice session at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

"Everyone at Dallara Automobili S.p.A worked extremely hard in a fight against time to be ready for the season opener at Bahrain International Circuit," Hispania said . "Their persistent and determined efforts paid off."

Despite the hard work, Dallara's chassis soon came in for some abrupt criticism by Hispania's experienced technical consultant Geoff Willis.

After just two races, Willis said "fundamentally I'm disappointed at the level of engineering in the car and I don't think it reflects current F1 practice by quite some margin."

"It's missing a lot of tricks that would be taken for granted by anybody in the pit lane now."

Since then, no further chassis development had been done by Dallara, while fellow new teams Lotus and Virgin had been able to upgrade their cars and were closing the speed gap on established rivals.

Team principal Colin Kolles had denied suggestions that Hispania was in financial trouble, and expects to announce ahead of the Canadian GP how the team will develop the 2011 car.




 

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