Sometime Formula One driver Christian Klien is still pushing for the chance to take the final seat on the 2011 Formula One grid, the Austrian confirmed on Sunday, saying that he would "love" the chance to race for Hispania this season.
Klien drove sporadically for the team throughout 2010, appearing twice during Friday practice sessions in his role as test driver before replacing Sakon Yamamoto at the Singapore, Brazilian and Abu Dhabi races.The former Red Bull driver impressed during his late cameos, outqualifying his team mate Bruno Senna despite a relative lack of recent experience.
And it now seems like Klien is the only one of HRT's motley collection of drivers from 2010 still in the frame for the second seat alongside Narain Karthikeyan at the team in 2011.
"My manager...is in permanent contact with the team's management," Klien eagerly bellowed at his official website on Sunday regarding his 2011 plans, "Needless to say I would love to drive for HRT."
He added that: "I am convinced the team will make good progress and surprise a few people.
"In Geoff Willis and chief designer Paul White they have engineers who know very well how to build competitive racing cars. I would love to develop it further. And they are masters of efficiency like no other team on the grid."
The second HRT seat is the only race seat still available on the 2011 grid, with Hispania happy to take their time to sign their second driver.
Klien has long been kept in the frame of potential signings for the Spanish squad, but the current frontrunner in the race for the seat is thought to be ex-Force India driver Vitantono Liuzzi.
Liuzzi tested for the team at the recent Barcelona test, along with ex-Midland F1 tester Giorgio Mondini, but Klien said that his lack of pre-season testing time was not an issue given that the team was yet to run their 2011 car.
"All tests were done with the 2010 car, which I have raced on five weekends last season," he pointed out, "Together with the race engineers I did a lot of set-up work on it to improve performance.
"At the end of the season we were able to close the gap to the other teams although there was not a single new part all year long."
He added: "Other drivers like Tonio or Giorgio Mondini have no experience in this car. From a team's perspective it is only justified to get as much feedback as possible and test other drivers' work."
He also took time to point out the irony of him contesting the HRT seat with Liuzzi, given that the pair entered Formula One with Red Bull in 2005 as the pioneers of the team's 'seat-sharing' plan alongside David Coulthard for that season.
"Yeah, funny, isn't it?" he chortled heartily, "At Red Bull we were both members of the groundbreaking 'seat sharing' model. But Tonio and I have remained good friends over the years."
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