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New Campos deal likely to save team

Colin Kolles will take over as team principal © Sutton Images

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• Drivers:
• Adrián Campos
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• Jose Maria Lopez
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• Bruno Senna

• Teams:
• HRT

The troubled F1 team Campos Meta appears to have taken a solid step towards solving its problems, after shareholder Jose Ramon Carabante took full control of the team and appointed ex-Force India boss Colin Kolles as team principal.

After weeks of speculation about the future of the team, Carabante finally announced he was taking over on Friday with the hope of making the season opener in Bahrain. The move will see Adrian Campos ousted from the set up and a likely name change before the first race.

"I would like to thank Bernie Ecclestone, who worked tremendously to support our efforts to keep the team viable," said Carabante. "The whole rescue operation has been a race against time with the goal of always having the team run two competitive cars at the first grand prix of the F1 season in Bahrain. We have a lot of hard work still ahead of us but we are excited about making our F1 debut and looking forward to a competitive season."

The team will continue with its original plan to use a Dallara chassis and will remain based in Spain with Bruno Senna as its main driver. However, Kolles admitted it is still in search of extra funding to secure its place on the grid throughout 2010.

"I could not resist this tremendous challenge and am very excited to join forces in this new team," said Kolles. "Over the next ten days we will review the entire operation, find the extra funding to ensure the team will make the first race in Bahrain, announce the line-up for 2010 in due time and make the operation viable under Jose Ramon Carabante's new ownership."

There are rumours that Jose Maria Lopez will switch from US F1 to Campos to complete the driver line-up and there is further speculation that Chad Hurley of YouTube may switch his backing from the US-based squad to the new Campos outfit.

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