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Marussia: We aim to have a very busy week in Mugello

A fairly significant checklist of items to get through

By Franck Drui

1 May 2012 - 00:02

The Marussia F1 Team has arrived in Mugello, Italy, ready for the start of this week’s Formula One test - the first in-season test in its brief history and indeed the sport’s first in-season test since 2008.

The Marussia F1 Team’s race drivers Charles Pic and Timo Glock will be performing the driving duties for one and a half days each in chassis MR01-01, with Charles getting the programme underway on Tuesday morning. He will continue through until lunchtime on Wednesday, when Timo will take over the reins for the balance of the test.

The team has a comprehensive programme mapped out for the days ahead, combining an evaluation of the aerodynamic upgrade set for introduction in Barcelona next weekend with some investigative work to try to understand the handling issues experienced with Timo’s chassis in the last two races.

Operating on home turf, Pirelli will bring all four P-Zero slick compounds to Mugello - the supersoft, soft, medium and hard - with the teams able to use the tyres remaining from their testing allocation of 100 sets of tyres per car per year. The Marussia F1 Team will therefore determine which compounds they will use from that allocation. The Pirelli Cinturato intermediate and wet weather tyres will also be available in case of rain, which has certainly been the case today in Mugello, with similar conditions forecast for Tuesday.

The Mugello circuit is used for various motorsport events throughout the year but Formula One has never raced here. The circuit length is 5.245km and has 15 corners, six left and nine right. It also boasts a very long straight, where F1 cars are expected to reach 335kph.

John Booth, Team Principal, Marussia F1 Team: “We aim to have a very busy week in Mugello with a fairly significant checklist of items to get through. The work will also be quite varied, since we have our upgrade for the Spanish Grand Prix to evaluate, a comprehensive tyre programme with the full spectrum of Pirelli tyres, and some retracing of our steps to try to get to grips with the issues Timo has experienced with the car, particularly in the last race.

“This is a very important week for us. In some respects we have conducted a lot of our pre-season testing ‘in the field’ during the opening race weekends, but having a clear week away from the pressures of a Grand Prix will provide a vital opportunity to catch up with ourselves.

“It is also great to be testing at Mugello, which is a fantastic track with some interesting elevation and direction features and the faster sections of the track are perfect for the tyre evaluation programme. We’re looking forward to a busy but interesting week which we expect to yield plenty of interesting and useful data to enable us to keep pushing forward.”