Karun hopes for reliability

Karun Chandhok is hoping that improved hydraulic systems due to arrive in Melbourne on Wednesday will help himself and his HRT team get some valuable mileage under their belts this weekend.

After a difficult debut in Bahrain, where Chandhok was only able to get out on track for the first time in qualifying, his HRT outfit is hoping things will be more settled down this time out.

Having been bugged by a series of hydraulic issues, there is some optimism that upgrades put in place by supplier Xtrac will lift the team's fortunes.

"Xtrac have taken all the bits back," Chandhok said. "For some reason the hydraulic system on my car was more problematic than Bruno's [Senna] - so they took it straight away off my car and went back to England. There are another two systems coming tonight and they say it will be better."

Despite the hopes of progress on the reliability front, Chandhok still believes that it will be impressive if the team makes the chequered flag on Sunday - reckoning it will take until the start of the European season for things to really settle down.

"It will be a miracle if we finish the race, and I am not expecting to, but I would like to do 20 laps in each session," he said. "If we can do that, the gains we can make will be tremendous – just for me, mileage-wise, you learn so much with the car. We just need to aim to do that."

Chandhok is also hoping that his HRT crew does not have to put in a repeat of the lengthy hours they had to work at the first race to get the cars ready.

"Bahrain was ridiculous," he said. "I know other teams did it, but for the boys to work 40 hours straight is not pleasant. It is a bit better here, but there are bits arriving early tomorrow morning, so I think tomorrow will be another long day for the boys."