Images emerged this morning of a potential livery for Hispania Racing for their 2011 charger.
Having brought in Hollywood vehicle concept designer Daniel Simon, the team is going about building a new corporate image for the Spanish outfit. Simon has previously worked with the likes of Bugatti and Honda during previous rebranding processes and is also the author of the car design book, Cosmic Motors.
The initial livery appears to be a far cry from the battleship grey that covered last year’s machines. As this early stage, Simon has taken a peculiar step of places messages on the car advertising sale spots. Rather than leave sections of the car blank, the large open spaces have been adorned with messages, such as “this could be you”, “this is a cool spot” or more simply “your logo”.
In fact, bar some occasional small ‘Tata’ logo’s courtesy of Narain Karthikeyan’s arrival, the car appears to be completely shy of sponsors.
Attracting sponsors to Formula 1 is a difficult game at the moment, especially if your previous car was regularly last of the pack, but considering there are with only five weeks left until the start of the season; signs begging for spaces to be filled are not the most attractive.
It potentially signals another tough year for Hispania – even Sauber struggled to attract spot buyers in 2010, despite their occasional points finishes.
Hispania’s 2011 machine is due to be launched at the fourth pre-season test at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain next month. The survival of the team may very much depend on its performance.
