Dodging the rain drops with MF1 at Silverstone

By Huw Alban
July 7 2006

Midland F1 Online were lucky enough to share another test day with Midland F1 Racing today. Despite rain showers and an engine failure the team managed to pack in a solid days testing with Christijan Albers at the wheel.

The weather here in Northamptonshire seems to be in league with the dates that Midland F1 choose to test. On Monday and Tuesday of this week it was glorious - hot sunshine and not a hint of cloud. That all changed on Wednesday with torrential rain, thunderstorms and localised flooding, and it's stayed that way since.

Today started reasonably bright, but there was a lot a cloud scudding across the sky and you knew just by looking that there was bound to be the odd drop or two of rain at some point during the day.

Midland F1 were using the south circuit today. For those of you unfamiliar with the layout, picture yourself at Becketts and start there - go through Chapel, down the Hanger Straight, around Stowe, down to Vale, around Club and up the Farm Straight. Just before Abbey take a hard right, through a small chicane and you're onto Tower Straight which pops out just after Maggotts corner.

It was obvious straight away that the team were playing with suspension, as this was the only thing that was being adjusted every time Christijan returned to the makeshift garage. This was confirmed an hour or so later by a friendly team staffer. Aerodynamics must have been a feature today because I noted that the team went to great pains to place sticky covers over all the open bolt holes. This may well be a normal procedure, but I certainly haven't witnessed this much of a fuss over it before.

All was going well, the car was running fine and the weather was overcast but at least dry. I was stood about half way up the Tower Straight just before the small chicane that exited out onto the Grand Prix circuit at Becketts. Christijan was awesome through that chicane. People who've been to a live race will know what I mean when I say that he looked fast through that section of the circuit. I honestly expected the car to spin helplessly out of control every time he mounted the first kirb, but somehow the M16 stayed glued to the track. It was awesome to watch.

Just when it was all going so well, Christijan bounced over the first kirb and a wiff of blue smoke curled out of the rear left hand side of the car. Before he was through the engine belched that tell-tale plume that tells everyone that the engine had let go.

Christijan returned describing straight away how he could feel the engine tightening from the cockpit of the car, and in any case one of the mechanics came over to me to let me know that the engine had expired.

It took the team roughly an hour and a half to change the engine, although I'm sure that under the pressure of a Grand Prix weekend that it would have been done in half that time. Whilst this work was going on, Christijan went back to the factory to entertain some guests and the staff at the circuit tucked into their lunch.

I reckon it took longer to remove the old engine than it did to fit the new one. First the engine covers came off, then the floor, then the whole rear wing and gearbox assembly, and lastly the engine itself, complete with the two radiators suspended delicately on either side. The old engine went into an MF1 lorry to be returned to the factory whilst the new engine (which was all assembled and ready to go) was bolted into position.

By 13:00 the team were ready to go again, and whilst the car was out of action the clouds above let go and deposited their contents on the circuit - not that it mattered anyway. By the time the car was ready, the rain had stopped and the warm wind had already started to dry the track out.

We encountered one more nasty rain shower that did interrupt one of the team's runs, but apart from that MF1 had a clear afternoons running. During the afternoon session I concentrated on capturing some images of the team going about the business of testing, and the team have been very kind to feature 33 pictures from the day on the MF1 website. To see the gallery go to midlandf1.com, and click on Gallery > Test > Silverstone Test - 7 July 2006.

One other observation worth noting was a self powered brake cooler that the team tested out on one of Christijan's returns to the garage. Often when the car returns to the pits, the team fit round assemblies to the wheels with fans in the middle blowing air into the wheel hubs. These are normally plugged into a socket on the lighting rig above the car. This new device had a raised section, presumably containing batteries, which could be fitted to the car the moment it was stationary outside the garage entrance. At the last public test in May, Torro Rosso were using small petrol engine driven fans to do a similar job but each fan required a mechanic to hold it in position. The Midland F1 device simply attached to the wheel, and stayed there whilst the car was pushed back into the garage. It'll be interesting to see whether the team adopt this new fan as standard equipment.

The test finished at bang on 5pm and immediately the pack up began. I was told that the chassis would be drained of fluids, and returned to the factory ready to be stripped down and rebuilt ready for the journey to France for the next round of the Formula One World Championship. We hope that this test has been useful to the team, and will be looking to see whether the work done here today results in an improvement in pace in France.

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