Premat prepares for China & Quintarelli shakesdown

By Huw Alban
September 20 2006

In case you hadn't noticed, we're carrying a new name tonight. As of today we are now Spyker F1 Fans Online, and this about completes our own transformation from Midland F1 Online. Fitting then that we got to see the teams 3rd driver for China today.

The test was well under way when we arrived at the circuit. Present in the Spyker MF1 garage was Alexandre Premat sat in the newly liveried M16 and right next door was another M16 chassis, but still in Midland F1 colours. I decided to be cheeky and ask what the story was. Ronnie Quintarelli is destined to drive the car at a demonstration run in Treviso in Italy this weekend, but the deal to do the run was signed under the old team management. As a result one of the M16 chassis had to be retained in Midland F1 colours, specifically for this event.

In asking I also discovered that the team now have four M16 chassis, three of which have been re-liveried and are being prepared for China. The fourth chassis will be repainted after the Treviso demo.

The team had started the day with Ronnie shaking down the demonstration M16 chassis. Premat then took over and had a busy day with the team and spent the majority of the morning getting used to the car, with the team making all sorts of adjustments to suit his driving style. His feedback to Oliver looked to be very good, with lots of nods and questions, and lots of hand guestures from the French GP2 driver.

We spent the majority of the morning in the pit lane watching the team go about this task, whilst the Midland F1 liveried M16 chassis was stripped and re-labelled ready for it's weekend away.

I spoke to several team staff and judging by their overall comments, they are optimistic about their new owners using phrases like "kid with a new train set" to describe their behaviour at the Italian Grand Prix. There were hordes of visitors visiting the team garage today, some that I had already met before. Those that I spoke to were again very optimistic about the future and seemed to be very happy with their new Dutch business partners.

Alexandre had one small incident in the morning involving a spin. He managed to damage some aero pieces in the floor of the chassis, but they were minor and the team were able to repair them easily and quickly.

He also had a minor moment in the afternoon, involving a huge lockup on the run down to Vale (pictured left). As a consiquence he ran deep into the corner but managed to keep the car out of the dirt on the other side. He was using plenty of kirb during his laps kicking up the dirt time after time at Stowe corner, whether he was pushing like mad of whether it is just his driving style I really don't know.

We returned to the pit lane for the last hour of the day. The team must have been happy with his progress as it looked as if they were conducting a tyre test with him. Everything was going well until about 15 minutes from the end when he returned to the garage before the end of his run. At first appearances it looked as if he just had a front right tyre puncture, but when he stopped a large pile of dust fell out from between the wheel spokes. The car had to be jacked up to get it into the garage, and when the team removed the front right wheel, the brake disk in lots of pieces, simply fell out. Phil overhead someone saying that Alex had reported over the radio that the disc had exploded during his lap. Fair play to the bloke for getting the car safely back to the garage.

Unfortunately that ended Spyker MF1's test today. The team will not be at Silverstone for the final day tomorrow, as they'll be busy getting kit out to Italy for the demo this weekend. As a consqience we won't be there either. The final public test at the Northamptonshire circuit will be at the beginning of October, and hopefully Spyker MF1 will be there and if possible we'll be able to go too and let you know what happens.

Pictures of Spyker MF1 from todays test can be found HERE

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