A deal between Hispania Racing Team and Toyota has been knocked on the head.
It was proposed that the HRT squad would use Toyota hardware next year, starting the 2011 season with the car that Toyota had built for this year’s championship until the Japanese giant decided to pull out of the sport before the season began.
However, Toyota Motorsport GmbH issued a statement that said the company has ended its association with the Formula One team. The statement said that it had withdrawn negotiations with the new-for-2010 outfit due to lack of payment.
It is understood that HRT would have had access to Toyota Motorsport’s engineering and factory resources at Cologne, Germany, as it tries to lift itself up from the tail of the Grand Prix grid.
“Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG) confirms that all cooperation with Hispania Racing F1 Team (HRT) has been terminated and will not resume,” the statement said.
“TMG retains all intellectual property rights to its current F1 car and is completely free to pursue other projects and support new customers for its high-performance engineering services.
“TMG regrets that HRT has not met its contractual payment obligations and will pursue all available options to reach a satisfactory conclusion to this matter.”
Hispania responded this morning with a one line remark;
“Hispania Racing is very surprised about Toyota’s Press Statement released this afternoon and this matter will be a subject of further clarification,” the team’s response said.
