The new Marussia will wait for Barcelona

While most teams will have their new cars ready for the first winter tests in Jerez, some will wait for the two sessions scheduled in Barcelona. Thus, the Mercedes AMG team is expected to wait until February 21 to give the W03 its first laps, as well as Marussia, as Pat Symonds reportedly stated, according to *Autosprint*: « In fact, Marussia, in addition to being delayed in building its car, still has to pass the mandatory crash test step for chassis homologation » the Italian site indicates.

Indeed, the regulations now stipulate that teams must have successfully passed the aforementioned crash test before being able to conduct official tests. However, this will not prevent the Russian team from participating in the Jerez tests with last year’s MVR-02, which will allow them to discover the new Pirelli tires.

After two disappointing initial seasons and the failure of the all-CFD philosophy advocated by Nick Wirth, the former technical director of the team, the men from Banbury hope to finally make progress in 2012 and will be able to rely on the partnership signed with McLaren for the use of the wind tunnel and simulator in Woking. Marussia – formerly Virgin – has also enlisted the services of Pat Symonds, banned from F1 until the end of 2012 due to the Singapore Crashgate, as a simple technical consultant, even though it is understood that he unofficially performs the functions of technical director in place of Nick Wirth.