Ricciardo set to repalce Karthikeyan in Hispania reshuffle
by Jack Lamure on Jun 30th, 2011Daniel Ricciardo looks set replace Narain Karthikeyan at Hispania from the British Grand Prix onwards. The deal is yet to be confirmed by the Spanish squad, but an announcement is set to be made this evening firming up details.
21-year-old Ricciardo has acted as third driver at Toro Rosso this season, contesting FP1 for the Italian squad at all eight grand prix. The Australian-born racer has combined that with a race-winning stint in Formula Renault 3.5 and is seen as one of the brightest prospects outside Formula One.
Now he is set to make the leap to the big time with the sport's perennial grid-proppers, joining Tonio Liuzzi for the remainder of the season. The Italian has dominated Karthikeyan all season, out-qualifying him at every attempt, but is likely to face a much tougher challenge in the up-and-coming Ricciardo.
Photo: Red Bull/Peter Fox/Getty Images
Toro Rosso had been expected to replace one of their drivers with Ricciardo during the 2011 campaign, but with both Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari enjoying solid results thus far such a move would have been difficult to justify. As such Red Bull will fund his seat at Hispania, bringing the Austrian energy drink's total number of drivers on the grid to five.
Karthikeyan meanwhile is thought likely to return to Hispania for a one-off appearance at the inaugural Indian Grand Prix in October with the 34-year-old's sponsors keen to gain exposure at their local circuit.
Comments and Discussion
About bloody time! I could never see the point in getting Karthikeyan to race for ANY team. He is unbelievably slow and is not even close enough to compete with his team mate. Good decison
I saw this as a rumour on twitter but didn't think much of it at first. Interesting, I suppose this way Red Bull get to see him in a race situation without having to run the gamble of dropping one of the Toro Rosso drivers.
Woo hooo.. Jaime keeps his seat!
I'd be nervous about this if i were Daniel.
Liuzzi's been putting in some good performances in arguably the worst car in F1, it's fair to say that Tonio will beat the Australian on outright consistency, but if he dominates the newcomer it might taint Ricciardo's reputation somewhat.
In 5 months time we could all be telling each other that it would've been better for him to have remained as third driver with almost a guarantee that he'll step up to a race seat next year with Toro Rosso.
Also if he turns out to be a crasher (something Karthikeyan hasn't been), then he could quite easily put the Hispania team in financial dire straits.
A risk for all parties methinks.
What Dave said but i will add with no risk there is no reward and Dan must be desperate to prove himself!
I wonder if the cars are even the same. Not that im doubting liuzzi's performances clearly he's done very well, but i still wouldn't want to step into a car that had been outqualified by a second all year by it's counterpart.
It will be rather different from what he experienced at toro rosso as well. Liuzzi is an old hand and has had half a season to reign in the worst problems for him self. It will be tough for daniel but if he can beat liuzzi then i'd expect him at redbull as soon as there's room.