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Marussia Launches 2012 Challenger In England

SILVERSTONE, England- After a good wait and so far failing to pass their last of the crash tests, Team Marussia launched their 2012 challenger Monday morning at the teams headquarters in Central England.

With only 13 days remaining until their first race in Australia, the team so far has missed all of the opening pre-season tests, but under the testing regulations, the car is permitted to conduct a shakedown as soon as possible. According to team consultant and former Renault technical director Pat Symonds, the car has one more day, perhaps on Tuesday to achieve that goal.

“The component in question has actually passed an observed crash test but has performing inconsistently in the observed tests,” stated Symonds. “The fail has been marginal but nonetheless, we need to completely eradicate that margin and as such we are taking the time we have to ensure we have an even more robust solution in place.”

Since the team has a technical partnership with McLaren, the car has a similar design which does not feature a “stepped nose “like most of the other manufactures.

Timo Glock returns for another season, but replacing Belgian Jerome D’ambrosio, who now is a tester at Lotus, is Frenchman Charles Pic, who was in the GP2 series last year.

Team manager John Booth expressed the satisfaction of finally getting the car out for the world’s media.

“We are very pleased to be running the new MR01 for the first time this morning,” Booth said. “It has been a long and frustrating wait for everyone in the team but we can now get back on track-literally-and start working towards the first race of the season in Australia next weekend.”

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