Despite a difficult winter for the Marussia team, Timo Glock is in a positive mood as he travels to Australia for the 2012 season.
The former Virgin squad struggled to get its new car through the FIA’s mandatory crash tests, which according to new rules meant the MR01 was grounded throughout the official pre-season period.

Indeed, the Russian website F1News quotes technical consultant Pat Symonds as saying the “last two months were the most difficult of my 20 years in formula one”.

Due to a testing loophole allowing some running on demonstration Pirelli tyres, the Cosworth-powered car finally made its debut over two days of ‘promotional filming’ early this week at Silverstone.

“The basis is definitely good; the first test miles were really good,” German Glock is quoted by the German-language Speed Week.

“The car did exactly what we expected from it. The data we recorded corresponded exactly to what we had calculated previously,” he added.

The report said Glock will travel to Australia on Friday, with his 30th birthday set to coincide exactly with the start of the new season.

Symonds added: “There is still much to be done, but it is a long term project and so I hope that we move forward step by step.”

 Marussia’s 2012 car will be on the Melbourne grid next weekend, after the MR01 finally passed a missing FIA crash test.
The former Virgin team’s Cosworth-powered car sat out the entire official pre-season period due to a new regulation in 2012 requiring single seaters to be fully homologated before they can even be tested.

The MR01 finally made its track debut on Monday and Tuesday, due to a loophole allowing limited running on demonstration Pirelli tyres for filming purposes even when the mandatory crash tests have not been passed.

But finally, late on Tuesday, Marussia announced that the crash tests have now all been passed.

“After a challenging few weeks for the team, we are pleased to have overcome the last hurdle of the final FIA observed crash test, which we passed today,” said technical consultant Pat Symonds.

“Whilst we have a lot of catching up to do, we take heart from the fact that everything is back on a more positive trajectory,” Renault’s former engineering director added.

Marussia’s 2012 car made its track debut on Monday, despite having failed to pass all the mandatory FIA crash tests.
But because the action at Silverstone is the team’s ‘filming and promotional’ pre-season running, rather than an official test, it was allowed by the governing body and rival teams.

Designed by former Renault man Pat Symonds, the MR01 – fitted on Monday with demonstration Pirelli tyres – does not feature a ‘step nose’, uniquely in common with technical partner McLaren’s 2012 solution.

“It has been a long and frustrating wait for everyone in the team but we can now get back on track and start working towards the first race of the season in Australia next weekend,” said team boss John Booth.

The car must now pass the missing FIA crash test before Melbourne, and Symonds sounds hopeful.

“The component in question has actually passed an ‘unobserved’ crash test but has been performing inconsistently in the observed tests,” he is quoted by Reuters.

Also for a filming day, HRT’s 2012 car is making its debut on Monday, at the Circuit de Catalunya.

Marussia Racing’s new MR01 finally made its first on-track appearance during a promotional ‘filming’ day at Silverstone, just a few miles from is Banbury base.

The Anglo-Russian team endured a torrid time in its attempts to get the car ready for the third and final group test at Barcelona last week, having skipped the opening session in Jerez to prepare the MR01 for early March, only to fail the mandatory FIA crash tests. Although both Timo Glock and rookie Charles Pic got some miles under their belts in Barcelona last month, it was at the wheel of the 2011-spec car, leaving them preciously short of time in the new machine ahead of its race debut in Melbourne next weekend.

The Silverstone shakedown, part of a promotional event ahead of the car’s departure for the Australian Grand Prix, will provide both team and driver with vital information on the new machine, which has been conceived after a ground-up re-evaluation of the way Marussia designs its racing cars. As such, the car is almost entirely new, with very few carry-over components from last year’s Marussia Virgin MVR-02.

The desire to make a clean break from the previous CFD-only creations presented the design team, led by technical consultant Pat Symonds, with the challenge of going back to basics to produce a solid mechanical package, whilst maintaining an eye towards achieving the incremental performance steps required to move the team forward.

The starting point for the design programme was a consideration of the people and resources available to the Banbury-based team. The former three-base operation has been consolidated into one site, the Marussia Technical Centre in Banbury, bringing the various elements of the business together to form ‘one team’. In particular, the design department and practices now benefit from far greater integration and collaboration. Furthermore, the aerodynamic department has been completely restructured and the aero methodology reinforced, blurring the boundaries between CFD and experimental work in the wind tunnel, as well as enhancing the fidelity of the team’s aero approach.

The technical partnership forged with McLaren Applied Technologies in July of last year has also been influential in the design process and the relationship is starting to yield benefit as the advanced facilities that the Marussia team has access to have been used to prove the correlation process with the MVR-02. It is however early in the relationship and the MR01 will become a beneficiary of the relationship in due course.

The key design priorities were to address previous aerodynamic deficiencies and, mechanically, achieve greater weight saving. At the same time, a lot of the detail of the car has been refined and the design team have been a little more adventurous than before, stepping closer to the engineering boundaries. The car can best be described as a significant evolution of its predecessors. The relationship with McLaren is also evident, as the MR01 is only the second car launched this season, after the Woking giant’s MP4-27, to eschew the stepped nose concept favoured by the rest of the field.

“We are very pleased to be running the new MR01 for the first time this morning,” team principal John Booth admitted, “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.

“Today is the first of two promotional events, so while the drivers will be able to get a feel for the car, they won’t be able to draw any real conclusions until we start running in anger in Melbourne. Nevertheless, this is an important day for us and we’ll enjoy every minute on track with the new car.”

Glock turned the first laps with the MR01, beginning his third season with the team and providing the all-important element of continuity required to keep moving the package forward. He is joined in 2012 by Frenchman Pic, who embarks on his rookie year in F1, having made the step up from GP2 to replace Belgium’s Jerome d’Ambrosio. Both drivers will get track time with the new car over the next two days, albeit running on demonstration tyres as opposed to the Pirelli P-Zeros that they will use once competition starts in Melbourne.

Virgin will not be using KERS technology in 2012.
Another of the new-in-2010 teams, Team Lotus, has announced that from next season it will be using the kinetic energy recovery system developed by Red Bull.

“We have done the very best job we can this year but without that extra power we are always competing on a different level to the teams ahead,” said team boss Tony Fernandes.

Virgin is also making efforts to catch the more established teams, including by hiring the highly experienced ‘crashgate’ engineer Pat Symonds.

“My impression of him is very good,” driver Timo Glock told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

Symonds’ attention to detail is already becoming apparent, with the switch from steel to titanium pitstop jacks, and the use of laser technology for pitstop positioning, seen for the first time in Singapore.

The German report also said the 60 per cent scale model of Virgin’s 2012 car is now complete and will enter the McLaren wind tunnel at the end of next month.

But Glock reportedly confirmed that, when complete, the car will not feature a KERS system.

And he warned: “I don’t think that by the first race of next year we will make a big jump. There just isn’t enough time. But for the start of the European season we are planning a major update.”

Virgin’s heavily updated car is visibly different to the one that raced in China three weeks ago.

With the full package available only to Timo Glock this weekend, it has a much higher nose than before and a Red Bull-style blown exhaust following a dire start to the team’s second F1 season.

Auto Motor und Sport said the car is 1.5 seconds quicker than the Shanghai version, with the high nose “a bit like the Mercedes”, admitted Glock.

Other teams, however, have had problems with such radical improvements, moving the German to play down reports Virgin could beat Lotus this weekend.

“We can’t expect the exhaust to work right away. Williams tried it in Shanghai and had to pack it up again,” insisted Glock.

He denied on Thursday that he is critical of designer Nick Wirth’s aversion to wind tunnels, confirming only that he is unhappy “with the car, that’s the main point”.

Now working as a consultant to the team is Pat Symonds, who is still banned from having a direct operational role due to the 2008 ‘crashgate’ scandal.

Max Mosley admits it is “quite possible” Flavio Briatore is gearing up to return to formula one.

The former FIA president last year oversaw the imposition of the ousted Renault boss’ lifetime motor racing ban for the crashgate scandal.

But Briatore overturned that verdict in a civil court, before Mosley’s presidential successor Jean Todt agreed to let the Italian and Pat Symonds back into the paddock in 2013.

It is rumoured that Briatore, 60, could return in a promotional role alongside his friend and business partner Bernie Ecclestone.

“It’s quite possible,” Mosley said in an interview with Germany’s Welt newspaper.

“Should he come back, then it will certainly not be as team boss, but rather as a promoter or a manager of his drivers,” added the Briton.

Mosley acknowledged the rumours about Briatore possibly working alongside F1 chief executive Ecclestone.

“Bernie and Flavio are good friends and often go to lunch at a restaurant in Brompton Road, opposite Flavio’s London office.

“That’s all I know,” said the 70-year-old.

Mosley said he is still in contact with Ecclestone “from time to time”, but predicts trouble for the stability of today’s period of peace.

“Within the parties that make up this sport – the teams, the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone – there is constant friction. The cooperation is extremely fragile,” he warned.

“Strengthening the balance of this triangle is a major problem requiring a lot of skill,” said Mosley.

With 67 points from seven races and sixth place overall World Cup Robert Kubica is perhaps the biggest surprise this season. The Pole has breathed Renault after the end of the era Alonso / FB / Symonds new life and is in the points standings of the last six races even before Sebastian Vettel and Alonso fourth.

“We must be happy with the start of the season, since Canada is only the eighth race, but we already have quite a few points in the account” is delighted Kubica. “We hope that the second half of the season as well or even better.” Lastly, we must put a good basis for 2011, because as Felipe Massa at Ferrari and Mark Webber at Red Bull have extended the most hotly sought-after alternative seem cockpits to be awarded.

At Renault, Kubica feels well, “It is no secret that I was not always satisfied in the past with the decisions of my former teams, but that had nothing to do with my crew, with which I had to work immediately,” he plays on BMW. “I am very happy at Renault, as the atmosphere is good and I respect the people who work for me, and people respect me. This is very important.”

Now he would like to stay ahead of Ferrari, as was the case in Istanbul: “Ideally we would be in front, but we must remain realistic,” said the 25-year-old. “The reality is that I’m faster in the last four of five qualifying as Massa was. We were faster not only in Turkey than they, but even before that. This speaks for our further development, but Ferrari will increase certainly soon . then billed after the last race will be. ”

(MotorSportsTotal)

Williams has emerged as a third possible recipient of Renault engines for the 2011 season.

After the French marque said it has the capacity to add more teams to its current F1 roster, it was rumoured that the hopeful newcomers ART could be eyeing Renault power.

Reports then emerged that the new Cosworth-powered Lotus team might be contemplating a change of engine supplier.

Now, Italy’s Autosprint reports that Williams – openly not entirely happy with its current Cosworth engines – is already in talks with Renault.

There may also be a link between the Williams/Renault talks, and rumours that Renault’s former long-time engineering director Pat Symonds could soon be a consultant to the design of Williams’ forthcoming FW33 car.

Renault currently supplies the team that bears its name, as well as the dominant Red Bull Racing, and Renault’s head of engine operations Remi Taffin said: “We still do not know how it will be in 2011.

“But we do know that we have the ability to assist more than two teams.”

(GMM)

Pat Symonds could soon be working with the famous British team Williams.

The authoritative Italian magazine Autosprint is linking Renault’s former long-time executive director of engineering with the Grove based team.

With his five-year crashgate ban reduced to three years in a recent deal with the FIA, 56-year-old Briton Symonds said recently that his company Neutrino Dynamics could be engaged immediately for F1 consultancy work.

Autosprint said Symonds could be a consultant for the design of Williams’ FW33 car for 2011.

Meanwhile, McLaren’s recently departed chief engineer Pat Fry is also being linked with other formula one teams.

He has just begun a compulsory six months of so-called ‘gardening leave’, but Finland’s Turun Sanomat is already linking him with possible moves to Red Bull, Mercedes, Toro Rosso or Force India.

(GMM)

In a sport and a paddock from which he is supposed to be banned, Flavio Briatore is making his presence solidly felt this weekend in Monaco.

With the crashgate scandal still fresh in the memories of F1 regulars, Briatore’s huge yacht Force Blue was spotted earlier this week in the Monte Carlo harbour.

The 60-year-old, implicated in the Singapore 2008 race-fixing scandal and banned for life by the FIA last year, then made his first personal appearance of the event by attending a party on Vijay Mallya’s nearby Indian Empress yacht on Thursday night.

With Jean Todt now in charge of the governing body in the wake of Max Mosley’s reign, a recent ban settlement means that Briatore and his crash conspirator Pat Symonds will be allowed to work in F1 again in 2013.

But the original World Motor Sport Council ban had ordered officials “not to permit Mr Briatore access to any areas” at FIA-sanctioned events.

On Friday in Monaco, Briatore lunched with Bernie Ecclestone, the Italian’s friend and business partner who has issued the ousted Renault boss a paddock pass as his personal guest.

Todt told the Associated Press that Briatore, wearing a blue t-shirt, is “free” to be inside the paddock because he does not have an “active role” with a team.

Meanwhile, spotted aboard his yacht ‘Iceman’ in the Monaco habour on Friday was the Citroen rally driver Kimi Raikkonen.

(GMM)

Apr.21 (GMM)  Flavio Briatore has revealed he has no intention of attempting to reconcile his broken relationship with former F1 colleague Max Mosley.

In his last year of FIA presidency in 2009, Mosley oversaw the imposition of ousted Renault team boss Briatore’s lifetime ban over the crashgate scandal.

But Mosley has since turned 70 and is now effectively retired, replaced by Jean Todt who has halted crashgate by agreeing to end Briatore’s ban in 2013.

Italian Briatore, now 60, also celebrated a birthday this month, and is currently at home with his model wife Elisabetta and their newly born son Falco.

But he told the Italian magazine Chi that he is not interested in making up with Mosley.

“He sent me a text message to congratulate us on the birth of Falco, but Mosley is part of my former life.  In my future there will be no place for him,” said Briatore.

“I’m happy for Jean (Todt),” the Italian added, “my friend of 20 years.  Thanks to him, the FIA can now quietly and serenely breathe new air.”

Briatore, who has always maintained his innocence despite conspirators Pat Symonds and Nelson Piquet admitting to plotting the deliberate crash of Singapore 2008, said he is not about to forgive the stain on his reputation.

“It was very bad for my story.  I suffered an injustice.  But the truth, the power of the truth, wins every time,” he insisted.

Despite the FIA agreeing to end its push to have a lifetime ban re-imposed, Flavio Briatore insists he is not guilty of race-fixing.

F1’s governing body on Monday announced that, after talks with the sacked Renault boss as well as ‘crashgate’ co-conspirator Pat Symonds, a settlement has been reached to end the scandal.

The FIA said the duo “expressed their regrets and presented their apologies”, in return for all legal action being dropped and the bans being effective only until 2013.

But Briatore, who turned 60 on Monday, later clarified that his regret and apology was not an admission of “personal guilt”.

The Italian’s statement, issued by his lawyers, also insisted that the settlement was not a recognition that the FIA’s verdict about Nelson Piquet Jr’s deliberate Singapore crash being true was “well-founded”.

“No further comment will be made by Flavio Briatore, who wishes to put behind him this matter and focus on his plans for the future,” added the statement.
GMM

F1’s governing body on Monday announced that, after talks with Singapore race-fixing conspirators Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, a settlement has been reached.

Briatore and Symonds were banned from motor racing by the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council for ordering Nelson Piquet Jr to crash during the 2008 Singapore GP, but the former Renault chiefs won an appeal against the decision in the French courts.

The FIA’s appeal against that decision was pending.

But it was announced on Monday that the duo have now “expressed their regrets and presented their apologies to the FIA”.

In return, the Paris-based Federation has dropped its legal action, and Briatore and Symonds have agreed to “abstain from having any operational role in formula one until 31 December 2012″.
(GMM)

The Court de Grande Instance ordered the lifetime ban imposed by the FIA against Briatore to be overturned.

Motor sport’s world governing body are currently looking into their options and considering whether to launch an appeal, a course of action Briatore has advised them against doing.

“I wouldn’t do it after such a verdict,” remarked the former Renault team principal in Gazzetta dello Sport.

Briatore, however, may now go gunning for the Piquets as it was they who blew the whistle on the ‘crashgate’ scandal.

Piquet Jnr deliberately crashed his car at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix in order to help team-mate Fernando Alonso take the win.

Briatore, along with former Renault director of engineering Pat Symonds, were then implicated in the conspiracy by the Piquets.

The 59-year-old Italian did initially threaten legal action once the story emerged.

That was soon forgotten after he vacated his position at Renault, who had opted not to contest the allegation made against them by the FIA that they fixed the result of the aforementioned race.

Asked if he would now take action against the Piquets, Briatore replied: “That’s very likely. The bad that has been done to me won’t be forgotten in one day.”

Briatore’s problem, however, is the Tribunal merely stated the FIA sanction was “irregular” as it did not comply with their statutes.

At no stage has the TGI reversed the FIA’s finding that both Briatore and Symonds conspired to cause an intentional crash.

Clearly in a feisty mood, however, Briatore may also take action against those drivers who opted to break away from his management company, notably Heikki Kovalainen and Lucas di Grassi.

“Except for Kovalainen and di Grassi, my relationship with the other drivers has never changed,” added Briatore, who also oversees the likes of Mark Webber.

“In fact, now we’ll analyse the situation with the lawyers to see whether we should take legal action against anyone who has broken the contracts with us.”

Briatore’s main source of anger, though, remains directed at former FIA president Max Mosley who he once described as “complainant, investigator, prosecutor and judge” in the case against him.

“It was a case of vengeance from Mosley, who has always managed the FIA and the World Council as if it was private property,” remarked Briatore.

“He had reassured me, telling me they understood I didn’t have anything to do with that story. Then came that verdict. It was an ignoble thing after 18 years of F1.”

Source: PlanetF1