HRT should be quicker than Virgin and Lotus - Senna

Its grey-liveried car might have been launched with just a week to go until free practice in Bahrain, but HRT could be set to immediately leap-frog F1’s other new teams Virgin and Lotus.

That is the claim of Bruno Senna, the Spanish team’s Brazilian driver and nephew of arguably the most revered world champion of all time.

After studying the data from the most recent Barcelona test, the 26-year-old notes that the new Virgin and Lotus cars appeared only about a second faster than a contemporary GP2 car — which is built by Dallara Automobili.

The Italian constructor has also produced HRT’s Cosworth powered car.

"And according to their estimates, we should be at least two seconds faster than a GP2 car right from the word go," Senna told Germany’s motorsport-magazin.com.

But the 2008 GP2 runner-up is still not expecting an easy time for his F1 debut in 2010.

"Obviously, it’s not going to be easy for us," said Senna, whose car will begin the season late next week without ever turning a test lap.

"For example, we’ll be starting out with suspension components made of metal instead of carbon fibre, so the car will weigh 20 kilos more than we would have liked," he added.