Hispania get best result, now target Team Lotus
Hispania Racing boss Colin Kolles was delighted following the F1 2011 Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday after Vitantonio Liuzzi gave the little Spanish outfit its best result to date.
Liuzzi eventually brought his F111 home in 13th place at Montreal's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and was ahead of both the Virgin's of Jerome d'Ambrosio and Timo Glock and Team Lotus' Jarno Trulli.
Team-mate Narain Karthikeyan also finished ahead of those fellow 'new' team rivals in the sister HRT car - but he was demoted to 17th post-race when the stewards handed him a 20-second penalty for gaining an advantage when he went off the track at turns 13/14.
Speaking after the race, Kolles set an ambitious target, by saying the next step is to try and beat Team Lotus and secure tenth in the Constructors'.
"Today we achieved our best result in the history of Hispania Racing. It was a great race with a positive ending for the team," he noted. "We made a step forward in terms of performance and in the championship position.
"The team is working very hard and it is a deserved result. The drivers did a very good job driving more aggressively after the track was drying up. We will have to improve further and target the 10th position in the championship.
"I am very thankful and happy for all the team members who are working very hard to move the team forward. I want to also thank the suppliers supporting us."
Liuzzi meanwhile was also encouraged, especially as all the updates provided a much needed boost in performance.
"It was a crazy race. The crazier it is the more we like it though," he added. "It was a great result for us, for everybody in the team, because we've done everything right since Saturday, when we had a great result in qualifying. In these kinds of situations you always have to gamble, you have to be in the right place at the right time, we made the right decisions and the team worked perfectly during pit stops. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but this is a great starting point for the future.
"The updates helped but in these sorts of conditions it's more about timing and getting the right tyres in the right moments. The pit stops have been good, everything went well. But we're positive because all the updates worked and now we have to keep pushing to get more for the following races.
"It's a great feeling to overtake other cars, we're always focused on challenging our nearest rivals, but this race was crazy because we were able to overtake much faster cars. All you needed to do was be smooth and under control, it's always a great feeling when you're racing properly.
"We achieved our best result of the season, which is great for the team. We hope this won't be our best finish of the season; we hope to finish even better in the future and will push for this."
