By Phil Giles
December 8 2005

Midland Grand Prix ran two EJ15b's in it's first official test session with Christijan Albers and Thomas Biagi driving. The team have been supplied with Toyota V8 engines and the test drivers ran for a total of 142 laps without problem.

Christijan Albers - 1:23.19
“I think it was a reasonable day today but we still have a lot of work to do. It is nice to get to know the team and work together. We have been trying to get the car to suit my driving style, however, this is not easy and it takes time. We had some little issues today but I think this is normal with a new engine and a new package. I am quite happy and hopefully it will get much better by the end of the week.”

Thomas Biagi - 1:21.82
“I am happy with the result of this test. For the first time in my career, I have done a lot of kilometres in a Formula One car. I was working step by step with the team and all the engineers helped me understand the car. We have tried different settings on traction control for instance, which is something new for me. I think my performance today was quite good but for sure, if I had been running tomorrow, I would have improved my lap times still further. Since August, I have been preparing hard physically with my trainers from the ISO Kinetic centre in order to be ready for this opportunity and I would like to thank him for that. I also want to thank MF1 Racing my sponsors and my manager Eva for that great experience.”

Albers in car.

James Key
“We have run the V8 car for the first time today and we did not have any major issues with it which is positive. The installation that we did for the interim car has been good, the engine has performed as we expected and hoped and has proved reliable. We have a few issues we have to solve for tomorrow but nothing fundamental. Christijan’s feedback has been very useful. He picked up on a few things which we can work on tonight to improve his set-up. We also have some work to do with Bridgestone on the new tyres for next year in the next few days. Thomas has done a great job today with some good lap times. He did not have any problems adapting to an F1 car and has contributed well to our efforts today. All in all, we are pleased with the progress.“

The test will continue tomorrow with Tiago Monteiro and Belgian driver Jeffrey van Hooydonk.