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Liuzzi Aims to Catch Virgin Soon

For the time being, Hispania Racing's goal in the 2011 Formula 1 series is quite clear: make the grid for the Sunday race. And the first step into making that performance regular was made in Malaysia, where both Vitantonio Liuzzi and Narain Karthikeyan made the 107 percent qualifying window on Saturday and, consequently, their first race appearance of the year.

Additionally, the news came with a further positive twist for HRT, as Liuzzi was less than a second slower than Virgin's Timo Glock and Jerome D'Ambrosio in Q1. All that coming from a new front wing debuted by the team at Sepang. And, considering that huge progress from one race weekend to the other, it's no wonder the Italian driver targets outpacing the Virgin racers as soon as possible.

After the weekend in Malaysia we are lot more confident heading into this race,” said Liuzzi. “We are confident the team will work better, we've got a lot more data to work on and have a better idea of what the car needs. We also have some upgrades which will help us be quicker and get closer to our competitors.”

We are aiming to qualify closer to our main rivals, maybe even ahead of them. Once again we are targeting finishing the race and getting more information on the car in order to be better prepared for the European races,” he added in a team preview for the Chinese Grand Prix this weekend.

Although both HRT drivers failed to cross the finish line in the race, their pace in qualy was quite good as compared to rivals Virgin, and Glock noticed that shortly after the Malaysian weekend. The German actually warned his team that unless they'll come up with some quick updates for the MVR-02, HRT will catch up soon.

If we don't go forward, soon HRT will get us,” said Glock, after Germany'a Auto Motor und Sport predicted that Virgin's next package will debut at Istanbul and will include a higher nose, a new floor and Red Bull-like exhaust, modified rear suspension and new wings.
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