Marussia to launch new car in time for first test

2013 F1 season

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Marussia have confirmed their new car will be launched on the first day of testing for the 2013 season.

The MR02 will be launched in the pits at Jerez on February 5th.

Max Chilton will drive the car on the first day of the test. The team are yet to reveal who his team mate will be following the departure of Timo Glock. Rumours suggest they will sign Brazilian rookie Luiz Razia.

All the teams will have its new car ready in time for the first test apart from Williams, whose FW35 will make its first appearance at the second pre-season test.

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Image © Marussia

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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27 comments on “Marussia to launch new car in time for first test”

  1. good, im glad Marussia are now up to speed, last season they missed the boat, so to speak, and struggled to keep up with Caterham, despite nearly holding onto 10th

    1. “up to speed” “boat”, thats funny..I think they will struggle to keep up with John Deer.

  2. Finally they start acting like a serious team. Looking forward to see another Brazilian on the grid.

    1. Yeah very serious to sack their lead driver for a pay driver

      1. @oel-f1 – “Serious” is certainly the word I’d use, since they evidently wanted to keep Glock and did everything that they could to see him stay.

        1. I wudn’t call a team who finished 11th last year serious, if they have 2 rookies in the team

          1. @foleyger – Yes, I’m sure the reason why Marussia have not made any progress in three years is because they’re just having a bit of a lark on a Sunday afternoon.

          2. They are not serious with their driver line up this year. Getting rid of a quality driver and replacing him another rookie does not show ambition.

          3. @foleyger It shows ambition to stay in F1 and be sucessful in the long term. The team would have kept Glock had it been financially possible.

          4. ambition by having 2 rookies and they have to learn the way things are run and learn some of the tracks for the first time? 2 pay drivers shows they want to survive not to challenge for Q2 or points

          5. @foleyger Yes, they want to survive. You just answered it yourself.

          6. I wouldn’t call a team serious if they just want to survive. They should be aiming for points not battling to stay on the grid

  3. Rumours suggest they will sign Brazilian rookie Luiz Razia.

    That in my opinion is competitive suicide. Marussia would be lacking any sort of dependability or a benchmark for improving the car. I suppose it is just a sad reflection of the times that a team may have to resort to signing two completely unknown entities for the sake of money…

    1. @Vettel1 – Not necessarily. They’ve had Glock for the past 3 years, and where has that got them? Perhaps if they are able to secure more money, then they can improve the car better during the season. I actually think that they could surprise this year.

      1. They’ve had Glock for the past 3 years, and where has that got them?

        Well until the last race last season his performace in Singapore had put them in a position to earn more money, which could’ve led to a better car. Now they have to take up a pay driver instead to cover for it, and it seems unlikely that either Chilton or Razia will be able to do the same, i.e. getting them a better result than Caterham, even if the new Marussia would be almost as good as the Caterham

      2. @jamiefranklin – Glock gave them stable foundations. Stable foundations of course are not cheap but make for a better building in the long term, one which is more stable and can be developed to a greater extent. Shaky foundations, although saving you money on the short term, hinder development in the long term.

        Sure they may benefit from the extra cash but I think Glock’s departure will only hurt them.

      3. Chilton was a wrecking ball (like most of last years GP2 grid) not that he’ll be around many cars and Razia is only there for money, had they kept Glock atleast the pay/rookie driver in the other seat had a benchmark. If you run a team and put 2 pay drivers/rookies in your team and you finished 11th in the constructors you shouldn’t be in the sport, plain and simple. F1 costs a lot of money, the new teams don’t seem to grasp this very well.

  4. Say what you want, but I personally think that Marussia have the best coloursheme of all the F1 cars.

  5. Good to see Marussia have their car ready for the first test. Let’s hope they survive this season and move closer to the midfield.

    The team are yet to reveal who his team mate will be following the departure of Timo Glock.

    Good for Chilton, he will have the car all to himself.

  6. luiz razia would not necessarily be bad for marussia, he has experience with the team, he was test and reserve driver in 2010 for virgin and the young drivers test, then has experience at caterham in 2011, drove in practice sessions, did the young drivers test in 2011, he also finished runner up in gp2 last year, also driving for force india and toro rosso in young driver tests, and has rumored to be between $20-30 million in sponsorship

    1. @kinggp Yeah, I have to admit I haven’t watched GP2 for a few years, but his name has been floating around for a while so he cant be too bad.

      1. but his name has been floating around for a while so he cant be too bad

        That’s the problem, though – his name has been floating around for too long. Luiz Razia isn’t like Lewis Hamilton, the kind of driver for whom you knew a season in GP2 was just a box he had to check before going on to Formula 1. No, Razia spent four years in GP2, racing with four different teams (Fisichella/Coloni, Rapax, Caterham and Arden). He was only runner-up in his final year; until then, his best result had been eleventh overall with Rapax in 2010. Given that Davide Valsecchi, the 2012 GP2 champion, spent five years in the category before winning the title, a large part of their success is in the way the 2012 GP2 grid was severely lacking in talent and instead populated with pay-drivers who were racing beyond their means.

        I think it’s pretty telling that the drivers who finished third and fourth overall – Gutierrez and Chilton – got into Formula 1 before the champion and runner-up …

    2. “20-30 million dollars of sponsorship??!!?
      That’s a lot of money. After reading the Brazilian articles about him confirming his place at Marussia he claimed that he had no Brazilian sponsors, I then checked his site and it did show some Brazilian sponsors but none of them seem to be any known sponsors or any with lots of money.
      Anyway as a Brazilian I’m happy we will have more than one driver for the upcoming season but I’m still not confident he will perform. Massa will hopefully have a better season and who knows, maybe Bruno Senna might have a shot with Force India or Catherham. Brazil has still got to produce a good driver since Ayrton. Rubens and Felipe are/were good but being from a country such as Brazil finishing second is not enough, Ricardo Zonta, da Matta, Antonio Pizzonia etc, were basically cameo appearances. I expected a lot more from Bruno Senna, Nelsinho Piquet and Lucas di Grassi, they showed a lot of potential and I’m worried Luiz Razia might be another one of them.
      However, I’m eagerly awaiting the young Nasr to step up and show what he’s got.

  7. Anyone else think that they’re trying to save money on broken front wings by setting the front wing so far back?

    1. @dragoll They ought to have gone without front wings. They couldn’t go much slower.

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