The HRT team has confirmed the departures of technical director Jacky Eeckelaert and head of production Simon Shinkins, as I reported would happen recently. Eeckelaert is returning to his work with Colin Kolles’s Kodewa, which will be running a Lola-Lotus LMP2 programme this year. The team says that chief designer Jean-Claude Martens will take over. He is not an HRT employee but has worked for Holzer Engineering in Germany since 2003, designing a variety of different machinery, including DTM, GT cars and even electric vehicles. The Belgian engineer has a long history in F1, starting out in 1990 at Leyton House Racing. He moved on to the original Team Lotus, following chief designer Chris Murphy and stayed until the team shut down at the end of 1994. He then spent two years as chief designer at Nissan Motorsport Europe before being hired by Toyota for its F1 project in 1997, where he stayed for six years before joining Holzer. The team has also replaced Shinkins.
The team recently introduced a new logo.
joeblogsf1 
*That* is a very good logo , a bit retro and ‘trackish’ :0)
I can only assume the logo shows how competitors negotiate the mobile chicanes that HRT so expertly supply F1…
All that logo tells me is they have no clue about racing on circuits.
Presumably this is a route map for deserting staff to follow to the exit. This team is now looking sicker than Simtek used to. Why on earth would anyone with any sense give them sponsorship money to spend?
Wilson
deckchairs and Titanic spring to mind
Worst logo ever!
3 new team logos
1 basic car
= 0 hope
Budget well spent!
I like the logo but they seem to have forgotten that a logo is just a flag. It’s what’s underneath that matters and a new logo can’t change that.
Is it just me? Rotate the graphic 90 degrees to the left (which can be achieved by inclining your head 90 degrees to the right) and it suggests to me somebody with their head in their hands, as in despair. Oh dear…
also looks a bit like someone walking like an Egyptian…
Rather puts me in mind of the RAC logo – don’t know if the RAC do circuit cover as an extra….
Puts me in mind of the failed USF1 – releasing new logos, yet no car. We shall see.
Well, the logo reminds me of the Catalunya circuit map. Where are they trying to relocate their base this time? I’m too lazy to look it up, but I think it’s either Madrid or Barcelona. Either way they try to suggest to us – or the Spanish sponsors – that they are really, really Spanish.
That logo is ridiculous. If you don’t know what HRT is, the logo won’t help.
Pffft, like they don’t have anything better to do than designing a new logo. It looks like this team – wherever it is located – is falling apart big time. Why in the world do they exist anyway?