The Marussia F1 Team has confirmed that the planned first test of its 2012 race car – the MR01 – has been delayed as a result of failing to pass the final FIA crash test. All cars are required to pass 18 tests for homologation to be granted. The MR01 has passed 17 of the 18 tests but the cars cannot run unless the final test is completed and so the team has been forced to miss the final pre-season test in Barcelona, starting on March 1. This is bad news for the team, which has been busy this winter moving its activities from Yorkshire to Banbury. That is no real excuse.
The HRT has also had trouble with its tests and it remains to be seen whether it will make the test. There are media reports from Spain that the team will be there with a car, but it remains to be seen whether these will prove to be correct.
Joe, all the HRT ones are passed now, so just need to get the car there… Do you know which test the Marussia failed on?
Well, just got to build it and get it there.
Right. I can’t see building a car (for the first time) in four days. There are always problems with things like running the wiring and hydraulic lines, fit problems, etc. If they were smart they would have had a mock-up chassis that they did all fits on; the chances of that are, in my opinion, pretty slim, as that would have made sense. Good luck to them, they need it.
If they get there with a car before the final day, even if its not running, HRT will have improved on last year!
More than Marussia managed, it seems. Guess meeting those tests really is not that easy then, is it?
Do the richer teams go about it differently (making parts extra strong to meet the crash tests, and then go about lowering weight and repeating crash tests)? Or do they just manage to generally get their design fixed a tad earlier or churn out the parts quicker through putting more money in.
I think the richer teams have more resources to replace the parts quicker.
The reason for the these two failing the tests would be one of the following.
1) Sailing too close to the wind with regard to factor os safety and stress calculations etc
A) Not having enough resources to make accurate stress calculations etc.
i)Not having enough experience to know what will work and what won’t.
Not having tested the parts themselves before sending to the FIA.
All about resources really.
I am sure that all the failures will have been caused by sailing too close to the wind.
I vote “all of the above” plus the wildcard option of “material defect” – though it’s arguably covered under “Not having tested the parts themselves”.
All the teams sail close to the wind though, some closer than others, some with better technical resources than others.
We were talking about this a few weeks back and I remember someone pointing out that some of the relatively big guns had failed the crash tests too. That’s another key point in favour of the experienced teams: more strict planning taking into account the possibility of a failed test.
Re: BasCB – pretty sure the teams aren’t allowed to mess with chassis design after the crash tests unless they want to do them all again. Not sure about the details of the rules, but I imagine it’s pretty closely monitored.
That’s a disaster isn’t it! Timo Glock didn’t sign up for this. Is the 107% time going to be a problem for the HRT and Marussia in Melbourne? It can’t be looking to clever surely… Many cars have failed the crash tests over the years but it’s only these two who leave it so late in the day to fail and have to turn up without a wheel turned over the winter.
Both teams have some good guys but in 3 years where’s the progress?
In Marussia’s case, backwards…
At least HRT is allowed and PASSED the CT. AND changed headquarters. AND they have a car. AND are media accessible.
And to mix Opus Dei and a F1 team, really, well, no comment.
Read things more carefully before spouting forth.
Have you seen the car yet?
Are you sure they have a car
More accurately I think they have many components currently spread around Europe.
Must have been one hell of a crash…
It sort of has been
Hahahahahhaha!!!
Who is the last one again??!!
Funny the double system to assess the back-end of Formula 1′s grid and their failures . Is because one is brit ( or used to be at least ) and the other no?
Joe you are a brave man, after all the yelling at you today you chose the Spanish and the Russians to finish your day???? Is this part of your Lent penance?????
Any detail? which is the test the didnt pass?
Will they be going to Melbourne?
FIA is really making life a lot more difficult for the smaller teams. I wonder why…
Everyone has to pass the same tests to the same rules. It’s also in the name of safety so not exactly ‘more difficult for the smaller teams’. Plus passing crash tests is a heck of a lot easier than making a fast, reliable car.
I can’t remember that cars struggled in previous years to the same degree with those crash tests. Are there more mandatory tests than last year? Or is the difference that this year cars must have passed all crash tests before participating in any test session, thus giving teams less time to sort out their chassis?
Both – the tests are stricter and the teams could test a car running a chassis design which had marginally failed, knowing that the new, slightly stiffer and stronger chassis would arrive in time for the first race.
Joe,I bet richard branson wish he never left braun and moved in on mercedes, it may cost more money in advertising. Like bernie ecclstone once said,” there are some people here are trying to get somthing for nothing in f1”, that one was refeared to branson in 2009 because of the limited budget and non commital to braun. what a chump.braun became champs that year, Branson may be good with cash, but in f1 that dont count for anything.The vast money he spent on setting up virgin /marussia would have been better spent on backing braun/mercedes and without the headaches…..and as for failing the crash test, what did you expect…..
Branson spent very little. He’s clever. He let others pay to use his brand. That is why Bernie was complaining.
Which is about the same trick Bernie pulls on all the circuits where they pay to let F1 race on them rather than F1 paying to use the circuits.
Joe, could you explain slightly more the Branson/Marussia/others setup?
thanks!
What was I talking about on here yesterday…? Suddenly HRT don’t look all that hopeless by comparison…
It is wrong to try to compare the two based on the fact that they have both failed crash tests. Beyond that they have nothing in ocmmon.
It is wrong to try and compare the two, yet you compare them in the article when there is absolutely no need to throw HRT’s name into the bag. The news is that Marussia failed the crash test, end of story.
No, Mr Honky, I write the news on this blog and to me it is more of a story that a second team has had trouble with crash tests, rather than just poor little HRT. You are entitled to have an opinion, but it does not make my opinion wrong. End of story.
Precisely, it is more of a story that a second team has had trouble with crash tests, hence no need to mention poor little HRT.
Start your own blog.
I think we should have an update on HRT after every story on any team – just for the heck of it.
Of course it will get a bit monotonous if in mid June they’re still saying that their new base is perfect, they’ve recruited new – highly experienced – staff, and the car should be ready for the next race.
I bet Dave Richards and Martin Birrane are counting their blessings now that they didn’t get in 3 years ago.
The rules will not allow that. If the team fails to appear for three races, then it ceases to be a signatory of the Concorde Agreement and is, in effect, dead. I doubt that will happen. At least I hope it does not. They may have their own way of doing things but at least they are trying. (Note for those who think I am biased against HRT: that was a positive statement about the team – in case you misinterpret it)
Proud of you Joe.
And of course – you’re right.
Indeed, but at least HRT have passed the mandatory scrash tests in time – in principle – to run their car before Melboure Free Practice. This despite their apparent dilly-dallying with moving hither and yon, staff coming and going, etc. Marussia by comparison are moving basically down the road from Shefield to the south and have had a largely stable technical and commercial set up over the winter.
Whether of course HRT actually have the parts to build a car and the staff to do so remains to be seen – but after all the criticism, in principle they can now move onto hopefully setting the car up and taking it to Melbourne being better prepared than in any previous season. Meanwhile Marussia have been spared condemnation, but haven’t been able to field a car yet.
It’s very sad that F1 still has teams that cannot pass the mandatory safety tests in time to test their cars. This is supposed to be the most technologically advanced sport in the world and these guys can’t get roll hoops and crumple zones sorted out. Ridiculous.
Ironic comment.
The reason that teams fail the tests is because they’re pushing right to the limits of technological advancement. If you’re making a freight train or a bus you take the minimum strength you think you need, then stick another zero on the end and you’re happy. Who cares if the bus weighs 4 tonnes rather than 3? It means you’re covered even if the part has a slight defect.
Material failure in particular is an area of engineering which isn’t fully mastered – partly because for a lot of engineering industries, if something has crossed the point of failure you are, as an American soldier might say, “totally FUBARed”.
Beyond crash testing, my caffeine addled mind can’t come up with many examples of interest in post-failure mechanics. Demolitions to some extent, to make sure a building crumples down, not sideways. Other than that, really not sure anyone cares.
You’d hope that HRT could somehow get from Spain to errr…Spain…to test their new car!
Whilst I agree with the idea of teams ensuring their cars pass crash tests before they put them on a track, I’m not so sure that it should be a regulation forced upon them.
Obviously the rules are in place with safety in mind, but wouldn’t it be safer for these teams to be able to test their new cars properly before turning up to the first race? I would have thought there would be a bigger safety risk in not running their cars at all. Look what happened with Lotus – a major problem which is much better discovered in pre-season testing than in FP1 in Melbourne, in a very public setting and 20,000km away from the factory.
One can argue that the rules are the same for all, and it’s up to the teams to design and build cars which will pass the crash tests on time, but I’m not convinced that the FIA should have this rule in place for testing. If teams are allowed to run cars which are not legal in other areas (what’s to stop them taking all the ballast out to set misleadingly fast times?), why should they have to be legal in this area?
Do drivers have to have a superlicence before they are allowed to test an F1 car?
I would imagine your biggest chance of unpredicted failure is during testing, you are after all trying to push the car to its limits. You don’t want your car failing, hitting the wall and then finding out your driver is crippled because the nose structure couldn’t handle the impact.
On the contrary, I would imagine that the biggest chance of unpredicted failure is the first time that an untried component is exposed to load. Far better to have that happen at Barcelona, which has far more run-off space than Melbourne, with only a maximum of 12 cars on track and very few spectators around to be at risk. Plus the teams would have 4 days to gradually work their cars up to speed.
In contrast, in Melbourne they will be trying to shake down their untried cars and get up to speed on a relatively cramped and dusty street circuit, in close proximity to walls and a much greater number of spectators, plus up to 24 cars on track at once, plus only having two 90-minute sessions on Friday and an hour on Saturday before qualifying begins, by which time they will have to be within 107% of Sebastien Vettel’s RB8 to actually get on the grid. As HRT showed last year, it’s a very difficult task.
The Marussia passed 17 out of 18 crash tests. Without knowing which test it failed and by how much, it seems reasonable to assume that if it could pass 17 tests, it was more likely to be a marginal failure rather than a catastrophic failure on the one remaining test. Likewise, the HRT passed 16 tests and failed 2 – according to the team, by “very small margins” (Autosport, 9 Feb), so again it’s unlikely that the car is an inherently unsafe design. My idea of risk management suggests that allowing these cars to test at Barcelona would have been better than making them wait until Melbourne to try them out.
In addition, any problems discovered in Melbourne are going to be very difficult to fix, as the cars will not get back to the factory until after Bahrain, so a problem similar to what Lotus faced last week could force either Marussia or HRT out for four races.
But conversely, zero regulation would allow them to test a chassis which would fail all the crash tests and therefore poses a major risk to the driver and some risk (albeit relatively minor) to trackside officials, journalists and team staff.
To my mind, it comes down to this : numerous teams failed the crash tests over this winter, but in every other case it was early enough that the team got a redesigned tub built and tested before their planned test schedule started. Marussia and HRT didn’t, and no-one else is responsible.
I agree that it’s a possible danger at FP1 in Melbourne for them to start their shakedown there and therefore there’s a risk of a serious crash if their suspension explodes or similar. See: Seb Buemi’s Toro Rosso in China. But the driver will be (should be!) safe because he will be in a homologated chassis.
To this end, I would not be against the suggestion that Martin Brundle (amongst others I’m sure) made when HRT/Marussia/Caterham first arrived : to set a minimum number of test miles which must be completed before going racing, not just a maximum.
As for problems being difficult to fix post-Melbourne : that’s F1. But if you’re prepared to spend the cash, you can get the parts delivered to the track.
I don’t disagree with any of that, but my angle was more that the situation F1 is now in is potentially less safe than if they had been allowed to test their cars. Yes, it’s their own fault and I can’t imagine any of the other teams will be too sympathetic. But it seems to be an unintended consequence of the new regulations which is worth reconsidering for next year.
If a chassis had failed the tests catastrophically, I’d be happy for the FIA to refuse to allow it to ever hit a track, but given that these appear to be marginal failures and we are talking about testing rather than an official FIA race, the cure in this instance seems to be potentially worse than the disease.
Maybe a better solution would have been allowing the cars to test but impose a severe penalty. I also agree with the suggestion of a minimum test mileage prior to the first race.
I’m still not sure about the FIA regulating testing, though. What will be the next rule they put in place and where will it end? Surely teams should be taking responsibility for the safety of their drivers and track officials, and be allowed to do what they want? And why was it OK for teams to test 2011 cars which do not comply with the 2012 safety regulations?
I suppose one could conceive a system of allowing a team to test a car which gets to within 10% of the test pass criteria for a small number of the tests and yet enforce full compliance before FP1 in round 1. But whatever rule you make, you’ll risk a team just failing to hit that range and the situation could repeats itself, though I admit that the laxer the rules, the lower the probability of this, as it would still be in the teams’ interests to get it right first time.
As for regulating testing; the FIA have a mandate to protect everyone involved in motorsport: drivers, teams, fans, officials, event staff, the lot. Evidently someone decided it was time to extend that to test sessions and I don’t disagree, though I accept your position that the current scenario is potentially more dangerous.
But I’m more in favour of a minimum test mileage (obligatory shake-down) rule than relaxing the safety side.
As for running 2011 cars, I can guess where the loophole in the rules is which allowed it, but why it wasn’t closed… no idea. Conspiracy theorists will claim “because Ross Brawn is still chummy with Jean Todt”. Others will just say that it’s an anomaly for this season which won’t be relevant if they don’t move the crash-test goalposts for 2013.
But I agree that it runs contrary to the principles of the rules applied in 2012.
Joe, do you really have to put up with the bile put forth by some of the posts above (fanatic trolls that they are)? They are quite abusive and don’t really add anything to the discussion… Now, On-Topic, I really had some hopes for Marussia, and that they could at least nip at Caterham’s heels this season…. shame
Quit your moaning – If you are not interested in a story don’t read it as the man says.
It does not bode well that on year three HRT and Marussia are still unable to bring their cars out on time. The reasons for the lateness may be very different but the conclusions seem to be the same. I wonder how motivated Glock will be after this latest set back? Hopefully there is a pleasant surprise in the pipeline but I fear another year of trailing around at the back a second and a half off the pace.
JOE
What’s the clarification in the sporting regs that came out yesterday, forcing Red Bull and Ferrari to shelve testing until Thursday ?
Also,
Would you agree that Alonso’s comment yesterday re the new car being ‘complex’ does not bode too well for the team?
The rule clarifiction is pretty much as follow:
The rule states that no testing may be done from the week before the first GP until the 31st of Decemeber of that year.
Red Bull and Ferrari intended to skip the first day of testing and do an extra day at the end to make up for it. Mercedes used this trick by only doing the first 3 days of the first test and then getting the ’4th day’ later which they have now done so they could use their new car (they used the 2011 model for the first 3 days of the first test).
The clarification is about when the no testing period begins. Is is 1 week before the start of the Australian GP (11th), the start of Free Practice of the friday (9th) or the start of the week preceding the week with the first GP in it (the 5th)?
It was clarified that it was the last and hence the final test which they wanted to do on the 2nd-5th instead of 1st-4th is technically not allowed. They have now changed back to the normal 1st-4th.
The obvious reason for wanting to do it later was to get more stuff out and give an extra day buffer so they can get everything out intime for the final test.
Why is Marussia bringing its car out this late anyway? That’s just asking for trouble, no?
They moved factories, changed the technical team considerably and basically did things which are not advisable in the short-term, but which are deemed to be better options in the longterm. In this respect HRT and Marussia are similar because the Spanish believe that their decisions will be best for the team in the long term. The reason for all the commenting about this subject is that very few in the F1 world believe that these are the right decisions, as they go against what has been accepted logic for the last 30 years.
Joe, when you say “very few in the F1 world believe that these are the right decisions”, are you talking about both teams, or just HRT? I’ve not heard criticism of Pat Symonds’ action at Marussia, so if you have doubts that would be very interesting. I did expect Marussia to make at least one test this year, and failing a crash test is a fairly foreseeable risk, so they’re not looking too clever right now.
No, I was talking about HRT setting up in Madrid. Moving to Banbury was a sensible idea, even if the timing might not be perfect.
Joe,
Are these problems a legacy of the long season last year. Afterall they were only putting away the 2011 machines in December and were expected to be getting the new car out and crash tested in a matter of weeks. Lotus discovered a fundamental design flaw at the test track, Mercedes felt the need to miss the first test and now Marussia: have the teams been stretched by the longer season?
No, not really. The design work on the chassis is usually signed off long before December. The bodywork and such things are constantly being upgraded but once the chassis is done, it is done for the season. Thus there should not be delays in the design process, if plans are clearly set out and are followed. The manufacturing and testing processes are another matter. These depend of organisation and, where suppliers are involved, money. Disruptions therefore in the management structure, team base location and the money supply are not a great idea at this time of year. This is why Caterham is planning to time its relocation differently. They believe, like Marussia, that one must be in Motor Sport Valley, but they are going to move during the season, rather than during the off-season. It remains to be seen whether this will lead to disruption.
Mercedes always planned to skip the first test. When I say “always”, I’m not sure precisely when the decision was made but they had never announced any plans to launch in time for Jerez and fixed the second test for their launch well in advance.