HRT in no rush to finalise drivers

HRT is in no rush to sort out its drivers for next year as the team says its focus for now is on the technical preparations it needs to be ready for 2011

Although the team suffered a setback in its plans for the new season after a technical partnership deal with Toyota fell through last month, the outfit says there is no doubts it will be there in Bahrain.

Team owner Jose Ramon Carabante told Spanish newspaper Marca on Wednesday that everything was on course not just for next year but for the longer-term future.

When asked if he believed HRT would be in F1 for a while, Carabante said: "Yes, of course. That's clear. The car will be on the grid for sure."

Carabante has said he is realistic about the progress that can be expected in the next few years, but says nothing he has seen so far has led him to not believe in the long-term viability of the team.

"We want to keep improving," he said. "We want to consolidate the team step-by-step over the next few years and to be one step ahead of what we have achieved.

"It's a long-term project and we want to keep on learning and see if in two or three years we can consolidate the project, which was the initial idea."

HRT has held talks with several drivers about its race seats for next year, and Carabante has said that there are still plenty of options on the table.

"There will be changes," he said about the driver line-up. "We are talking to various drivers. There are five or six drivers we are talking to and we are in no hurry.

"Until January we won't announce anything as we are looking to see what the best option is. There are many possibilities and we want to have the most reliable drivers, just like the car."

Speaking about the ambitions for 2011, Carabante said: "We have to be realistic. We want to be a step ahead of where we were during this year and that's that. To be high up is a dream, a utopia. Scoring is also very hard, but we want to be [just] behind Toro Rosso, Force India and teams like that."