HRT not allowed to race in Australia

Neither HRT will start the Australian GP

HRT will not race tomorrow’s Australian Grand Prix after failing to qualify.

The troubled team failed to qualify within the 107% rule by over a second, and the stewards threw out their request to take part in the race.

This is the second year a row that HRT have failed to qualify for the first race of the season. Narain Karthikeyan, who was 1.4 seconds off the 107% rule, blamed DRS and hydraulics failures on his F112:

"I didn't have the DRS working and had issues with the power steering, so we 
could have easily been in.

The DRS alone is worth about nine tenths [of a second], and the power steering 
is virtually non-existent, it's almost impossible to drive. I think the problem 
is that the hydraulics are getting so hot, the viscosity of the fluid is thinner."

Interestingly, Karthikeyan also claimed the team would struggle massively in Malaysia. He cited cooling issues on the F112, combined with Kuala Lumpur’s extreme temperatures, as the reason for this.

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