Pedro de la Rosa plagued with tyre degradation at Singapore

Pedro de la Rosa enjoyed yet another competitive race weekend around the Marina Bay street circuit, as the Spaniard came home 17th after a time-capped Singapore Grand Prix. This result matches de la Rosa’s personal best result of the season, however the Spaniard was plagued with tyre degradation during the closing stages of the race.

As the race drew to a thrilling conclusion, Pedro de la Rosa lost out heavily due to high amounts of tyre degradation on his Cosworth-powered HRT F112. The 41-year-old lost ground as the likes of Nico Hulkenberg and the two Marussias simply steamed passed the ailing HRT driver. Regardless of the difficult ending to the race, which ran the entire two hours, Pedro de la Rosa was satisfied with the race weekend at Singapore.

"I’m satisfied with today’s race.” Explained Pedro de la Rosa, “The safety cars helped me out, but I must admit that the race dragged on a bit for me, and the last five laps never seemed to end because I had no tyres left and I started to lose ground on Glock and Pic and Kobayashi, Kovalainen and Hulkenberg, who were flying, passed me like nothing. Physically it was a tough race but I finished quite well. We did everything we could with what we had and I think that we managed the situations well. For us it wasn’t easy at all to finish the race and that is a victory in itself.”

Although Pedro de la Rosa enjoyed another satisfying race weekend for HRT, Narain Karthikeyan retired from the race on lap 30 as the Indian driver slid into the wall at turn 18. Due to the unforgiving nature of the Marina Bay street circuit, Karthikeyan became the second retirement of the race. HRT will unquestionably be striving to continue their competitiveness next time out at Suzuka, for the Japanese Grand Prix.

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