New Marussia MR01 breaks cover at Silverstone

2012 F1 cars

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Timo Glock, Marussia, Silvestone, 2012

Marussia have revealed the first picture of their 2012 F1 car, the MR01.

The team announced on Twitter the car “made its trackside debut at a promotional event this morning”. The car will run today and tomorrow at Silverstone using Pirelli’s demonstration tyres.

Team principal John Booth said: “We are very pleased to be running the new MR01 for the first time this morning.

“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.”

The MR01 previously failed one of the FIA’s crash tests and so was unable to participate in pre-season testing. Marussia, who competed as Virgin in 2010 and 2011, described the car as “a significant evolution of its predecessors.”

The design team for the MR01 was led by Marussia’ technical consultant Pat Symonds. The team, which was previously split across three separate sites, have consolidated its operation at a single location in Banbury, named the Marussia Technical Centre.

Marussia MR01 pictures

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    Keith Collantine
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    73 comments on “New Marussia MR01 breaks cover at Silverstone”

    1. Is that a bumplesss nose I see before me

    2. Gorgeous. A bit Sauber-ish, but really nice. Shame that it will be rubbish on the track.

      1. It does look quite nice, but I don’t think it’s as pretty as the Sauber. The front half looks very odd in the profile shot.

        1. yes very odd I cant understand that.

        2. That’s odd. I think the Sauber is the most hideous F1 car of the lot, but I guess I’m in the minority when I say I think the Ferrari is beautiful. What an odd season this is in terms of design :P

          1. It looks good in the thumbnails, but when you enlarge the pictures it begins to lose its appeal!

    3. Well, both HRT and Marussia have finished their cars and both are equally dissapointing to some extent. Both (as its easier to talk about them as such) look rather “Basic”. The MR01 looks better then last year, i’ll grant them that but at the same time, I dont know .. theres something about it that doesnt inspire confidence that it will beat the 107% rule, let alone be anywhere near the pace. But still, atleast its finished. Same goes for HRT too.

      Damn, that Front wing is higher then some of the grandstands! *

      *Might be an exaggeration

      1. Both look rather “Basic”

        Does this surprise you?

        1. No, not at all and whilst Ill admit its an advancement from 2011 (such as the sidepods) and its undoutably a money issue. I was wanting both to make a car that went from looking basic to something more akin to the 2012 field and not the GP2 series. Think of how big a jump the Lotus/Team Lotus/Caterham went from 2010 to 2011, it was massive. Sure it wasnt quite a midfield car but it was much quicker then HRT/Virgin last year.

          1. I think the sidepods are the same, all the main chassis area is.

            This reveals (predictably) who had asked the FIA to allow them to run last years chassis.

          2. I think the reason Caterham have done well is partly, but not at all exclusively, due to their higher budget.

            But you are right, these teams “should” have made more progress by now.

      2. That is a high wing. You could probably fit a whole Red Bull wing underneath it!

        1. I would imagine that the front wing is exactly where the rules allow it to be. It probably looks low because this car has the lowest nose of the field.

    4. Forget the backmaker. What’s this rumour about Mika Salo being hired by Ferrari as test driver? Something stinks at Maranello.

      1. AFAIK it’s not a rumor but a fact. Ferrari has surely hired him, but he will probably drive just old Ferrari’s in all kinds of show events rather than testing F2012.

    5. Completly ugly. Awful colour scheme, attempt at Caterham livery.

      HRT – No nose bump, livery looks professional

      1. HRT has a bump

      2. Agree, Marussia looks like it’s from a different series.

        1. Just saw the bump, hidden by tyre, but not that big, good

        2. That’s mainly because of the nose… -.-

          I dunno, everyone complains that all the cars look the same, then one comes out different no one is happy.

          1. everyone complains that all the cars look the same, then one comes out different no one is happy

            True that. You can’t please all of the people, all of the time, I guess.

          2. I think the frustration is that we all want the field tighter together, closer racing and less predictable results in Qualy and the Race. Sadly, this will probably mean that the cars will need to be somewhat similar to each other in looks too.

            Thats not to say we’re all judging a book by its cover, but of all the teams on the grid, its HRT & Marussia that need to close the biggest gap and naturally thats where the biggest frustration is.

            That said, if everyone had a car that didnt have a broken nose, I dare say there would be a lot less grumbling over the looks ;)

    6. Fallen in love with its nose for the very first sight, thanks for the McLaren connection. The “Red” color reminds me a lot of the 2007 preseason Spyker livery.

    7. Take note Sauber, that’s how the front of your car should have looked too…

    8. Damoor Valentino
      5th March 2012, 19:02

      Doesn’t even look like a Formula 1 car. More like a GP2

        1. @Mike
          Perhaps because it’s livery is identical to Marrusia-Carlin GP2?
          http://f1.imgci.com/PICTURES/CMS/13500/13550.jpg

          1. seperated at birth?

          2. And that’s a reflection on the F1 teams performance, as opposed to who owns the teams?

          3. Hard to tell the cars apart. Great link thank you.

            I love the aggressive look.

            Why couldn’t they make it to testing. Just one day after testing finishes they can run the car. It must be some reason other than the car not being ready. Sounds like they didn’t have the funds to go to the test maybe.

            1. @bearforce1 because they still have’nt passed all the crash tests. They are really cutting it fine.

        2. Damoor Valentino
          5th March 2012, 22:02

          I think the livery makes it look smaller? or is it just me?

    9. The new livery doesn’t seem right. The colours are good and all, but it just looks like a cebra crossing, but in red and black, specially from the side.

      The first one was better. But well, at least it doesn’t have the stepped nose!

    10. Nice looking livery, if it will race as good as it looks!

    11. Seems odd to design a car that only looks really nice from one angle – in this case, side on.

    12. Can’t say I really like it. Even the tribal design was better looking. At least it was original. Quite frankly, it is also completely different than the Sauber paint job. I can see where people are going to make comparisons, but the Sauber at least has a fast, aggressive look to it.

      The car looks like it was wrapped in ribbon or something. Just not a good look, considering of what they previously had.

      1. Yum, the tribal design, that was bloody brilliant.

    13. I like the car. I think I prefer the HRT livery, but this one is still good. It’s better than last year’s livery, with the little bit of white at the end of the nose.

      1. Definitely agree with @jamiefranklinf1 In a way it looks like a montage of the Sauber and Caterham liveries. The Sauber as the front and Caterham rear. The front looks goodish, the side is a bit weird at the red is too pale, their first livery was the best.

        1. Yeah I see what you mean there. It’s the bit on the engine cover that’s the same as Caterham.

          I reckon they could have been a little more creative with the livery, but they’ve gone with this design for all of their cars across different series, so it’s not a surprise.

        2. I thought it was an orange colour. Like a wasp.

          1. wasp? in f1? no.

      2. The nose, for me, definitely improved from being red rather than big-white. The wasp suggestion appeals to me, the pointy nose helps give that image.

        The team do seem to have stepwise gone from the interesting, though not to everyone’s taste, tribals to a more consistent but generic livery.

        Hard to say anything else about the car, though I think the sidepods look smaller than last year (I think). Like HRT, I wish them success getting a good set-up for Melbourne and hope those two teams can have a good battle right to the end of the race, giving them some mileage and a finish to chalk up.

    14. Is it just me or are nosecones getting enormous?

    15. Caterham have left HRT and Masrussia for dead!! The MR01 looks like a GP2 car, and im pretty sure will be as quick as one, not F1 standards!!!!!

      1. The MR01 looks like a GP2 car

        Again how so?

        not F1 standards

        1. What is F1 standards?
        2. Based on??

    16. My gut response to the nose was 94/95 Benetton.

      1. Yeah, I had the same impression from seeing it in that loast picture

    17. Truly Hideous.

      But all the best, none the less.

    18. Was shocked to see the car on F1.com first! F1 fanatic is usually much quicker than anywhere else.

      I have to say its a sad day when a backmarker is better looking than every other car but 1 :-P

    19. I assume it meets the tech regs, but that front wing seems to be very high off the ground compared to all the other teams. I thought for best effect you want it as low to the ground as possible? I really don’t see a very bright future for them, at least for this season. It will take time for Symonds to really stamp his mark on the team.

      1. @ mclarenfanjamm didnt Virgin start last season with a nose that was lower then the rest of the grid and I think around Turkey they actually raised it some what, so is its possible that its a 2011 spec wing for the launch and that the 2012 one will be with the car in Melbourne. I dont know that for sure, its pure speculation on my part.

    20. I’ve visited autosport and here for most of the day looking for pictures of both this car and the HRT and so far every time I’ve looked at the Marussia, I can’t help but saying “….damn……poor Timo Glock”. Car doesn’t look promising.

      1. @sward28 I fail to see how people can come to that conclusion to be honest. Aesthetics have no bearing on performance.

        1. Fair enough, however just looking at it, especially from the side shot, it looks quite plain, not much development. On top of that they aren’t going to run KERS this year. Now I’m not a car designer so I have no clue, they could very well come out and blow the doors off the HRT or whoever is going to be their main competition.
          I think I just expected a bit more out of them. Caterham is looking more and more like a quality F1 team with each passing year now and Marussia just hasn’t given me that feeling.
          But who knows the season hasn’t even started yet so we will see.

    21. I kinda like it!

      I understand why, but I guess I wasn’t expecting the Virgin sponsorship to be so much smaller this year.

    22. The livery seems to remind me of an old Minardi, especially the diagonal lines, except the red was yellow. Late 80s/early 90s? There was perhaps some white in there as well. Maybe I’m mistaken.

    23. A decent livery. A little disappointed there’s no Marussia blue, but it’s certainly better than their last two attempts.

      Looking forward to their battle with HRT and how they perform compared to their previous CFD approach with Nick Wirth.

    24. The design of the livery reminds me of a mix of the Marlboro Penske Indycars/Marlboro McLaren F1 cars combined with the Lotus/Caterham livery design of last year & this year.

    25. I think a lot of people are going to support Marussia this year simply because they don’t have a bumpy nose.

    26. Not sure what happened to my comment, but I was saying that this looks like that OTHER Russian F1 team.

      Anyone remember Midland?

      1. you got a good point there

    27. What I dont understand: Why they didnt use their 2011 car to test the new tyers like mercedes did. I t would have given them valuable data

        1. ah ok – thx a lot :)

    28. looks strange :\ more indy than f1 methinks but that could be the colour scheme.. the nose looks super long

    29. Is that a NACA duct on the right hand side (face on) on the top of the body just before the cockpit opening. The dark (non-shiny) triangle only appears in one of the photos as most of the photos are taken from the left hand side of the car. Can someone with better eysight give the photo a once over?

    30. No I am wrong the dark triangle is only a reflection of the air intake above the drivers head, it is not a duct.

    31. The car looks to be running high because of the promo spec tyres supplied for this event. I have read elsewhere that the Pirelli promo tyres are basically wet weather tyres with no tread blocks cut into them. They therefore have larger diameter and increase ride height. This is an FIA regulation designed to prevent teams from gleaning meaningful data from any running undertaken outside of officially sanctioned test days.

      This team will finsih 12th again this year I believe. Even if the car is quicker over a lap than the HRT it won’t be quick enough to re-pass the HRTs after they’ve blasted by off the grid using their KERS.

    32. OmarR-Pepper (@)
      6th March 2012, 12:48

      Don’t care if you say I’m crazy… but this one is my fav (aesthetic-wise) then comes McLaren and finally… ermmm….. well noone else the rest of them have got a hammerhit on the nose

    33. How long does everybody think it will take for Ron Dennis to freak out over another MTC existing?

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