It became a mess from the moment the Dallara association ended. I am still confused about Willis' hired gun role. Was his criticism of Dallara the impetus for cancelling the project? Dallara may have granted them the IP on the project but did not release the design data. That meant reverse engineering the car. From my experience of project design; the moment you enter the realm of reverse engineering the budget takes on telephone numbers. If I had been in charge I would have gone back to Parma, but I suppose Kolles had all the aces, factory, staff, race equipment, etc.Was it all down to Kolles?
I think Willis was the most critical of Dallara . . . then again, he was hired for quality control and technical direction.
I seem to remember reading that the Carabante family had (some of) its financial assets frozen in some way, not long after the purchase. I think Kolles (and Geoff Willis at the time) were led to believe that there were funds for the deal with Toyota which never happened. There was even a press release that it was a firm deal and Toyota staffed up accordingly. Then the owners couldn't or wouldn't pay.
Campos/HRT has had three owners, none of which really had the money nor the stomach for F1. That has been HRT's curse.
The greatest irony is that this year they ended up with a customer car from Holzer that was worse than what Dallara delivered.
Edited by Petroltorque, 11 December 2012 - 15:32.