Marussia, formally known as Virgin Racing and Marussia Virgin are the second of the teams we will look at. They are of course one of the three new teams that entered two years ago. Marussia have managed to prop up the Formula One constructors championship for the past two years. This has been somewhat of a shock as many people expected HRT to finish last.
This season, Marussia will run with the experienced Timo Glock in one car and rookie Charles Pic in the other. Once again they have a mountain to climb but I am expecting an improvement from this team in 2012. Perhaps not enough to catch Caterham, but they will make some inroads to the midfield pack. A tie up with McLaren will help them, but these things take time. One wonders if this is the beginning of a long lasting partnership with McLaren, perhaps leading to a Red Bull/Torro Roso arrangement.
So what's in store for this season? I am expecting a vast improvement in their lap times, perhaps even scrapping into qualifying two occasionally, although that would be a surprise. Charles Pic is a relatively unknown package, quite why Marussia have chosen a driver who's record in GP2 over the last two years is not outstanding, finishing 10th in 2010 and 4th in 2011. Expect Charles to be seeing more of the blue flags than the chequered ones. Timo Glock on the other hand will show us how far the team have come. He's a great driver, it's just a shame he's at the wrong end of the grid.
So, finally, what do I think will be the outcome of the season for Marussia?
2011 Position - 12th
2012 Position - 11th
Conclusion - Unfortunately, I can't see Marussia making too much progress in the way of championship positions. However they may surprise us with one or two jumps into qualifying two. Expect to see a F1 car that looks right this season, as the car in the past two seasons even looked slow (if that's possible)
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