06/03/2012
NEWS STORY
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Following its track debut on Monday - for filming purposes - the Marussia MR01 has now passed its final crash test, thereby giving the Russian team the green light for Melbourne.
New for 2012, cars are not allowed to take part in the official tests unless they have passed all of the FIA's mandatory tests. On 27 February, days before the final test was due to begin, the team announced that though it had passed 17 of the tests it failed the remainder, meaning that it could not take part in Barcelona alongside its rivals. Instead, like HRT, the team waited until after official testing and ran its new car as part of a filming day.
Today, twenty-four hours after its track debut, the team confirmed that the car has been fully passed by the sport's governing body.
"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 Pat Symonds, technical consultant to the team. "The component in question actually passed an 'unobserved' crash test but has been performing inconsistently in the observed tests. The previous fail was only marginal so we needed to have a slightly more robust solution in place. A few minor adjustments to the original concept of the component was all that was required.
"We were all thrilled to see the new car out on track over the past two days," he added, "and 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. We now look forward to the challenge of the season-opener in Melbourne next weekend."