Safety first for Hispania

After failing to make the grid for the Australian Grand Prix, Hispania can feel satisfied that they took a step forward in Malaysia.

Both Karthikeyan and Liuzzi managed to get their Hispania cars within 107% of the fastest time in Q1 on Saturday, which resulted in both cars starting the race in Sepang.

Neither car finished the race with Narain Karthikeyan retiring after 15 laps with Tonio Liuzzi forced to retire on lap 47.

But team boss Colin Kolles remained pleased following the race: 'We stopped both cars just to be safe, Narain's car had very high water temperatures so we advised him to stop. Tonio was close to the finish the race and felt an unstable rear.' the Hispania boss told Autosport Magazine.

'We pitted the car twice to check the problem and found out that there was a damage on the rear wing so we decided to stop just for safety reasons.

'Overall it wasn't a bad day considering this was our first proper race and our first chance to test the car in a race situation.'

The team now hope to continue their progress in China next week.

'There were no major issues so we need to try and improve for the next race in China where we hope to finish. Our lap times were not bad compared to the front runners, this shows there is some light at the end of the tunnel.'

Good luck to them, out of all the newbie teams Hispania are the ones who have struggled the most, in fact if it wasn't for the postponement of the Bahrain Grand Prix last month, they may well have been thrown out altogether as they certainly wouldn't have been ready for that race!

So every race they do get to participate in is a huge achievement.