Marussia to miss final Barcelona test

Struggling Marussia announce they won't run at the final Barcelona test, as well as some other updates from the world of F1.

Marussia F1 team have announced that they will not run in the final pre-season test at Barcelona. The struggling team didn't run at all in the first test at Jerez, and in the second, also at Barcelona, they ran their 2011 car.

Charles Pic runs the 2011 car last week


The team confirmed that their new car, named the MR01, had failed one of the mandatory FIA crash tests. A statement released by the team said “The Marussia F1 Team is disappointed to confirm that the planned first test of its 2012 race car – the MR01 – has been delayed as a consequence of not passing the final FIA crash test. All cars are required to pass 18 FIA-observed tests for homologation to be granted. Despite the fact that the MR01 has passed all 17 of the preceding tests, the regulations require the car to have completed all of the tests before running commences. The team will now not take part in the final pre-season test in Barcelona later this week (1-4 March) and will instead focus its efforts on repeating the crash test at the end of the week.”

De La Rosa drove the 2011 HRT in Jerez

The teams drivers this season are German Timo Glock, who is entering his third season with the team, and Frenchman Charles Pic, who is about to make his F1 debut. This news means the team's first running of their car is likely to be at the Australian Grand Prix. In other news this week, Ferrari and Red Bull have had to abandon their original plan of their testing session starting and finishing a day later than everyone elses, due to a change in the regulations. They will now run on the scheduled day of 1st-4th March, like every other team will. Finally, HRT's 2012 car, named the F112, has passed the final mandatory FIA crash test. HRT's car had previously failed this test, which stopped them from running in the first Barcelona test. It is still unclear whether they will be running this week though.

Keep with my blog for all the opinions, launches and testing updates throughout the winter, as we count down to the Australian Grand Prix.