Profile of HRT Team Principal Luis Perez-Sala

Luis Pérez-Sala was born in Barcelona on the 15th of May of 1959. He made his first steps in motorsport in karting and in 1980 he won the Spanish Renault Cup. The following year, alongside Luis Villamil, Pérez-Sala won the 2 hours Renault 5. In 1983 he began to compete on the international stage in the Alfasud Sprint Cup and one year later he competed in Formula 3 as a part of team Campsa.

New Team Principal for HRT

Photo by: HRT Motorsports

From there he moved onto F3000 where he was runner-up in 1987 and one year later, in 1988, he made the definitive step into Formula 1 with Minardi. He completed two whole seasons with the Italian outfit and achieved his best result at the 1989 British Grand Prix where he finished in sixth place, helping him to score one point in Formula 1. In his first season with Minardi, Luis teamed up alongside Adrián Campos making it the first time ever that two Spanish drivers coincided in a same Formula 1 team.

After abandoning the pinnacle of motorsport, Luis returned to Spain to compete in the national touring car championships. He won the Spanish touring car championships in 1991 and 1993 and finished runner-up at the 1999 Lamborghini Europa Trophy. In 2000 he took the 24 hours of Barcelona title in the diesel category and in 2003 and 2004 he won the Spanish GTB Cup alongside Manel Cerqueda.

In 2005 he won the 24 hours of Barcelona once again, but this time in the main category and the following year he ended in second. In 2008 he was runner-up in the Spanish GT championship and won the Trofeo Ibérico along with Manel Cerqueda Jr. in what would be his final season before retiring.

Nelson Piquet, Luis Perez-Sala and Thierry Boutsen

Photo by: Tom Haapanen

Since 1990 he combined his sporting career with work as a lecturer, commentator and technical analyst for different media channels (RTVE, El País, TV3, Grand Prix, etc.). He is also specialized in all kinds of instruction and formation courses related with technical motorsport formation on tracks for competition drivers, and he is also a part of the Joves Pilots del Circuit de Catalunya program.

A program backed by the Generalitat of Catalunya, the Circuit de Catalunya, the RACC and the Catalan Motorsport Federation and that in the 2011 season has backed four drivers: Daniel Juncadella (F3 Euroseries) who recently became the first Spanish driver to ever win at the prestigious F3 Macau Grand Prix, Víctor Colomé (French F4 Championships), Gerard Barrabeig (European and Italian F-Abarth) and Álex Riberas (Eurocup FR 2.0). Other drivers such as Jaime Alguersuari, Miquel Molina (DTM), Dani Clos (GP2), Albert Costa (Formula Renault 3.5) and Miki Monras (Formula 2) have also gone through the program in previous seasons.

In July of 2011, Pérez-Sala returned to Formula 1 as a sporting advisor to HRT F1 Team where he is now the head sporting figure after being named Team Principal.