The Midland Formula One team was back in action today when they took to the Silverstone circuit in the UK with three drivers on duty, Giorgio Mondini, Markus Winkelhock and Tiago Monteiro. Only 36 laps were completed in total, thirteen for Mondini, 12 for Winkelhock and eleven for Monteiro.

The team’s goals for today were twofold: shaking down the second M16 race chassis for Bahrain; and running through a series of pit stop drills with all the hardware, using the team that will shortly be executing these critical routines during races.

Giorgio and Markus finalized their pre-season testing programme in preparation for their Friday driving duties in Bahrain and Malaysia, respectively, while Tiago conducted the remainder of the shakedown.  As always, there is still plenty of work to do ahead of the season’s first race, but the team is pleased to have concluded its pre-season build up with another productive and trouble-free test.

“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to do much hard running today, as it was freezing cold and actually snowed quite a bit!” Tiago said at the end of the day. “But we did manage to shake down the new car, test out the new gearbox and practice some pit stops and refueling, so it was a pretty useful test.  As usual, the mechanical components and team members performed flawlessly. Now, everyone is excited and getting ready for the first race in two weeks.  Personally, I can say that I’m really looking forward to being in a warm, dry climate again!”

MF1