Despite the changeable conditions Marussia made progress on day two in Barcelona

Day two of the final pre-season test at the Circuit de Catalunya saw a continuation of the wet conditions experienced yesterday, albeit the rain had stopped by midday and the track had started to dry considerably.

Max Chilton, Marussia F1 Team MR02

Photo by: XPB Images

Max Chilton was back in the car for a second day and he got the morning session underway with more of the wet weather set-up work started yesterday.

In the afternoon we were able to switch focus to a dry tyre programme and an evaluation of further components from the new aero upgrade for Melbourne.

Max Chilton, Driver #23: “It’s been a very productive day today in which we’ve been able to maximise running in both wet and dry conditions. The track dried up quite a lot over the lunchtime period and early afternoon, so it’s a shame it started to rain again towards the end.

By that time we had achieved quite a lot of our programme with the new aero package and the results from that look promising. The forecast for the next two days looks much better so by the time we leave here on Sunday night we should be well-prepared for Melbourne.”

John Booth, Team Principal, Marussia F1 Team: “We have made very good progress today despite the changeable conditions, completing 75 laps and ending the day P8.

Further wet running has been useful experience for Max and it is all good information for the Team at the same time. The dry spell was a little longer than we envisaged so we have achieved more of our aero evaluation programme than we expected and it is very pleasing to see that yielding positive results.

We look forward to continuing in this vein over the next couple of days and on Sunday we’ll really have Melbourne in our sights when we have the full race team present for an intensive final day of preparation and pitstop practice.”

Marussia F1 Team