Bahrain GP: MF1 preview

What a difference a year makes.

Heading into the 2005 World Championship, Jordan Grand Prix arrived in Australia with a new owner, rookie drivers, and an unfamiliar engine bolted into an ageing chassis.

A year later, the freshly rebranded Midland Formula 1 team touches down in the desert kingdom of Bahrain with a striking new look befitting a team driven by the desire to build on lessons learned over the course of last season.

Fresh off 14 complete days and thousands of kilometres of winter testing in Spain and England, MF1 Racing is confident it possesses a package capable of running reliably and competitively.

Its Toyota RVX-06 V8 engines have run faultlessly over the course of several race distances, the Bridgestone tires continue to show marked improvement, and the brand-new M16 chassis is a significant leap forward in every respect when compared to its predecessor.

With two fast young drivers in Christijan Albers and Tiago Monteiro behind the wheel, the team is optimistic and ready to meet the challenges that lie ahead.

Colin Kolles, Managing Director:

"We have worked very hard to get to where we are today, and we're continuing to work hard every day. A lot of effort and investment has gone into re-building this team, from the infrastructure at the factory, to new race equipment and a new car."

"We don't expect things to change overnight, but we now have the right ingredients on this team to push forward and that's a good first step. Bahrain represents a fresh start for us, and we're determined to make the most of it."

Tiago Monteiro, Car #18:

"After a long winter of testing, it's very exciting to be back in action. The first race is always very interesting; there are so many unknowns. Everyone on the team is very keen and motivated. I think we did an excellent job of getting ready this winter."

"We did way more testing than last year, and that can only help us down the road. We have to stay realistic and focused on working on moving in the right direction, but everything is looking positive at the moment. We're ready to go racing."

Christijan Albers, Car #19:

"I think we're doing quite reasonable, but it's never enough in Formula 1. We need to push every day, every minute, every second, to get the results we're looking for. But the most important thing is that everybody is really motivated and everybody is pushing really hard to achieve our goals, which is to crack the top 8 and score points whenever we can."

"Based on what I've seen so far, it's a reasonable goal but we have to keep working really hard for that. We've seen constant improvements in testing: the car is still quite new, but we keep finding performance improvements and it keeps getting faster all the time."

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