Narain Karthikeyan has been granted permission to start the Spanish Grand Prix despite missing the 107% qualifying time.
The Indian driver suffered from a poorly fitted onboard camera which meant he had to abandon his final lap and return to the pits.
He missed the cut-off by just under three seconds, but managed to beat the time in FP3 and therefore it has been deemed he is competitive enough to race on Sunday.
HRT’s technical director Toni Cuquerella, admitted they suffered some bad luck with Karthikeyan: “We weren’t lucky in qualifying as he spun on the first set of tyres and wasn’t able to set a good time, and when he was about to go out with the second set we had to abort as there was a problem with the fitting of the on-board camera which made it dangerous to go back out.
“He wasn’t able to get in the 107% but I’m confident that, given the performance he showed this morning, there won’t be any trouble for him to start tomorrow’s race.”
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