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Piquet Sports and Hitech Split

Hitech Piquet Sports have announced that the two teams which joined to form the GP2 team - Hitech Racing and Piquet Sports - have agreed to part ways with immediate effect

Piquet Sports will assume the running of the GP2 team, while Hitech Racing will concentrate on their Formula Three team. The move means that Hitech Piquet Sports team principal David Hayle, who is not in Istanbul this weekend, has left the team.

Hayle's role will be filled by Bill Harris, who spent seven years with McLaren, where he was the team manager, and most recently filled that role at Team Cadillac in the United States. He also worked with Nelson Piquet Sr during his time with Benetton.

When asked about how the split came about, Nelson Piquet Jr told Autosport-Atlas: "We split up because it was not working out. It wasn't working in the team, and I think having fifty percent of the team is the same as having nothing.

"We decided to give the team another opportunity, and he wasn't interested in doing it anymore, so we bought the team."

The split comes after months of rumours of tension between the two sides of the outfit, who were believed to have differing ideas on the best way to run the team.

Piquet wouldn't be drawn on the friction between the two sides, but noted: "I wouldn't say that, just because he left, things are going to be better, but our plan of course is to try and make things better - that's what we're going to try to do."

Piquet Sports boss Felipe Vargas felt the move would be positive for his team, nad he told Autosport-Atlas: "We had a difference in objectives and times available to dedicate to the team, and we were needing all the personnel to concentrate fully on our organisation and results.

"David had his commitments with Formula Three and other stuff, so we decided to split and go our separate ways. It was all done amicably and in a positive way, and now it allows us to concentrate and go for the results only."

When asked how the new team structure would work, he stated: "I'll be team principal, but my background is being an engineer, and that's what I like to do the most. I will try and leave the team manager role and all of the administrative jobs to Bill, and I will concentrate more on the technical side.

"I also decided a few months ago that I will engineer Nelson again, and that's really good - I work very well with him, and we understand each other's way of working. I want to keep having the time to work with him, and not really get involved in the administrative side of things."

The team will continue to be called Hitech Piquet Sports until the end of the season, as that was the name registered with GP2 at the start of the year. It is expected that they will revert to Piquet Sports at the completion of the season.

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