By Huw Alban
January 28 2006

MF1 Racing Sporting Director Adrian Burgess has been speaking to the media about the gains the team have made in creating the Midland Toyota M16, and he sounds confident about the team and it's progress under Midland Group.

"It's all coming together," Burgess has been quoted as saying by several news sources. "Obviously, at this time of year it's always hectic, but as of today we have things under control and we'll make it on time. We feel that we're going to produce a far better package than we did a year ago. We've had 12 months of stability now, we know who the owner is, we know where we're going, and we know what the engine is.

"Last year, the Toyota was really thrown into the back of the previous car. The installation was OK, and the reliability showed that everyone did a good job, but with this year's package we've had that much extra time. We've been able to attend to details that we couldn't with last year's car. So everyone is excited and eager to get on with it."

The announcement of James Key as Technical Director seemed to take some media outlets by surprise, however just like Chief Designer John McQuilliam and Aero Chief Simon Phillips, James knuckled down and got his hands dirty during many years at Jordan. Now that experience is being put to good use.

"They've all been there a while now," says Adrian. "We have restructured a little bit, promoting James to the technical director's position. He's a steady pair of hands. He's the newest technical director in the pitlane, but he's been here a long time, he's worked in most of the significant departments within the business, and he's got a good overall feel for what each area contributes to the overall package. He's in a good position to pull all those elements together, which is what he's doing at the moment."

It is no secret that the EJ15 was simply a reworked EJ14, and the team were publically slated by the fans for not investing in a new car. For 2006 the team have created a brand new chassis, with a brand new aero package, and everyone in the team seems to be very excited about it.

"We're quite happy with what we've seen in the wind tunnel, and by virtue of having a new chassis we've seen some fairly decent gains over the car we raced in China last year. Just having a new chassis has opened up so many different areas in the wind tunnel that are now giving us results, whereas we tried things before on the old chassis and they weren't really effective."

We can expect to see a number of similar quotes being released by the team over the next few days as the team build up to the launch of the new car on the 3rd of February. Here at MF1O we're already fired up and confident, and interviews like this just add yet more fuel to the growing enthusiasm surrounding this team. OK, so we could all come down to earth with a bump in Bahrain but these guys have been at this game for a long time - and if they're excited about their new creation then so am I !

Story editors note:

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