For sale: one Formula 1 team, slightly used

Sounds like they will remain a more stable team financially, but no other change beyond that. Change needs to be more radical.
 
Sounds like they will remain a more stable team financially, but no other change beyond that. Change needs to be more radical.
Uh, radical change is practically impossible with Hispania. Until today, Jose Ramon Carabante controlled little more than the grid entry. Everything else was owned by Colin Kolles. One of the major reasons why Hispania ran into trouble at the pre-season testing was because they needed to ship parts into the port at Barcelona, but those parts did not clear customs in time for the test. A lot of people demanded to know why that happened since the team is registered in Spain - but they're only registered in Spain. They've been using Kolles' facilities in Germany quite extensively. Once of Thesan's biggest goals is to establish the team quite firmly in Spain. Once they've done that, then bigger changes can come.
 
"The Spanish investment group will lead the development of Hispania Racing in the upcoming years, maintaining the current team and directors, which is one of the main assets of the company, and will try to develop and search for opportunities to optimise and improve the performance of the team in the upcoming seasons, alongside progressively making the team more Spanish and definitively settling the team in Spain,"

That says to me that they are not looking to come in and change anything other than its stability. My understanding is that almost every aspect of the team has been on the rocks and yet they are still pressing Virgin (well, Liuzzi is at least) so with the foundations of the team more rooted it could be expected that would push them beyond Virgin. Except that Virgin themselves today anounced a technical partnership with McLaren, which will yield greater benefits I believe. As you say though, hopefully this is the platform for the greater changes.
 
If Thesan want to better-establish the team in Spain, then they need to find an existing team in Spain to make an alliance with. Most people will suggest EPIC Racing (nee Epsilon Euskadi), but I think a better team to work with would be Addax Team and Alejandro Agag. Addax compete in GP2 and GP3, which run parallel to Formula 1, and they are based in Valencia with Ricardo Tormo as their home circuit - which happens to be one of the more-popular testing circuits for Formula 1. Joining with Addax would give Hispania a direct line to talent in the lower categories, especially since the Addax GP2 team is one of the most competitive.

As for Agag, he knows Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore through their purchase of the Queens Park Rangers. His father-in-law was the Prime Minister of Spain until 2004, and sits on the board of directors for News Corporation. So he has sporting, business, political and media connections to his name, connections that would help Hispania immensely.

On the other hand, EPIC Racing has virtually nothing. They've been in decline in the World Series By Renault since Robert Kubica won the title in 2005, their base in Basque Country is nowhere near any premier racing facility, and their applications for entry to the Formula 1 grid have been rejected twice. Indeed, there was talk that their second entry was never actually intended to be successful, but to draw attention to the team as they looked for new investors when they became EPIC.
 
Your OP is going to confuse some. HRT have not been "sold", rather, taken over and under new management.

And before you go jumping down my throught, there is a difference between being sold and being taken over. For example, Honda sold their F1 team to Ross Brawn, he renamed it Brawn GP. A completely separate entity from Honda. Same thing can apply to BMW and Sauber. But a takeover is something more like Minardi being taken over by Paul Stoddart from Giancarlo Minardi. The team remained as Minardi, and little inside the team itself changed.
 
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