The first to speak up about Dallara's poor chassis work was the very technical director of Hispania Racing, highly-rated Geoff Willis, who publicly stated his disappointment over a car that is unlikely to be improved over the course of the season. And that's not because the Spanish investors don't have the money to secure the updates, but because the chassis provided by Dallara is a poor base to begin with.
Now, less than a week before the Chinese Grand Prix, another member of the HRT F1 team, business affairs boss Manfredi Ravetto, slammed the Parma-based chassis manufacturer for the awful technical package they worked on through the entire last year.
“What Dallara delivered was a total mess. They built a Formula One car with quality that you no longer see in Formula 3,” said a frustrated Ravetto in an interview with Dutch publication Formule 1 Race Report. “They (Dallara) delivered the cars and that was it. To develop the car further, we will have to do it,” added the Italian, hinting that Dallara's input in the development of their 2010 challenger lacks completely.
Basically, after building an F1 car, one has to continue developing it through several aerodynamic and mechanical updates (from circuit to circuit). That's easily done if a team builds its own chassis, as they hold the basic information on the car. In this case however, Dallara holds all the info on their F1 chassis, leaving HRT F1 handle the development work all by themselves.
Although finishing the race with both drivers in Sepang, the pace of the HRT F1 was by far the poorest as compared to the other new teams, as both Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna finished the race 3 laps down to the leading pack.
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