The rebranded Marussia team will miss the first test of the season in Jerez, despite having originally planned to run the 2011 Virgin – mainly to give rookie Charles Pic more seat time.
The team has now decided to skip Jerez completely and run the old car at the second test of the year in Barcelona on February 21-24, before bringing out the new car for the second Barcelona session – and the last before the season – on March 1-4.
The new model is totally different from its predecessor, following the departure in the middle of last year of former technical director Nick Wirth.
Speaking via Marussia’s Twitter feed, team principal John Booth said: “The MR01 will be almost entirely ‘new’, with very little carryover.
“Unfortunately our programme has slipped and there seems little point in fielding the new car before we can optimise the run plan for it.
“We will hopefully gain more constructive track time than we might otherwise have achieved had we rushed the new car out for the second test.”
Adam Cooper F1 
Oh dear, at least HRT are saying something about running the 2011 car in Jerez, should’ve chosen Barcelona instead.
These days F1 testing is a sad affair, unlike some 4 or 5 years ago when fans and media would extract much more info from test sessions than now. I know crisis is to blame, etc., plus they all invest into shiny new simulators but that’s just not fun, period. Testing has always been an integral part of the sport, OK, maybe they outdid themselves a bit in the past; still, I think it wasn’t so bad.
Wouldn’t surprise me if they cancel Mugello in-season test due to some weird reasons
Marussia is sounding a bit like HRT, but given the major change they made in 2011, a delayed fielding of their 2012 entry is no surprise. But that lost track time in testing is hard to make up, even with modern simulators, and as far as physical fitness goes there is no substitute for the strain of a formula one car regardless of its vintage. They’ve got to get more in season testing in, we’ve had far too many young drivers get thrown to the wolves with precious little seat time, its not good for them or the sport, and frankly I don’t think the restrictions on testing save all that much money.
Why is this a surprise? This is a low budget team that has only so much cash to go around. A good question would be to ask is “do they have enough budget to finish the season?”
While the team has an understandable argument as for why they wouldn’t bring the new car to the first test they participate in, it would be interesting to get an explanation as to why they decided to not even run the 2011 car at the Jerez test. From my perspective, “more constructive run time”, with a rookie driver having joined the team, it would have made sense to at least participate in every test.
Who would have thought HRT will bring their new car before Marussia…..