The HRT F1 team are aiming to keep themselves off the foot of the constructors championship in 2012, according to team boss Luis Perez Sala, admitting that they could aim for little more given the delays with their new car.
The Spanish team had been aiming to debut their new 2012 car at the second pre-season test of the season in Barcelona next week.
However, after the team's F112 car failed their final FIA crash tests, the team has been forced to delay the introduction of the new car until the final pre-season test in March.
For their first two seasons in the sport, HRT have managed to finish ahead of Marussia (née Virgin) in the championship, despite failing to test their car before the start of the season.
And speaking this week, new HRT boss Perez Sala said that the team would likely start the season "a little bit behind", but said that beating Marussia again should be their target.
"We have a new car and a new team. That means, to start with, we will be a little bit behind," he told the always-exciting Indo Asian News Service.
"But we believe that sometimes to improve you must go backwards firstly, we have taken one step backwards in order to take two forward.
"Our target is to grow little by little as the season goes on."
he added: "If we can stay ahead of Marussia, we will be happy and if we get closer to Caterham, then we will be delighted,.
"But our first objective is to get things under way, improve on reliability and progress as the season advances."
HRT will go into 2012 with Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan, but the team has a history of chopping and changing their drivers during a season.
And Perez Sala admitted that their starting line-up might not last the full season again in 2012.
"The idea as of now is to race [Karthikeyan] the whole season, but nothing is taken for granted in Formula One," he grunted.
"You have to work for your place in every race. But as things stand, Karthikeyan and Pedro will race the entire season."
Last season Karthikeyan began the season, but was replaced midway through by Daniel Ricciardo.
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