Spyker presents new livery during final shakedown

As the Spyker Formula One Team completed its final kilometres of pre-season running today at Silverstone Circuit, UK, it unveiled a brand-new car colour scheme with the luminous orange and black replaced by a more subdued, pearlescent orange and tungsten that will be the definitive team look for the season.

"We trialled the very bright colour in the first three tests of the year. Whilst the bright orange was a very distinctive colour when you saw it in front of you in the garage or on the track, the colour didn’t transfer well when filmed,” commented team principal Colin Kolles. “It’s important for the Spyker brand that the colour is uniformally represented by all media and we’re confident this will be the case with the new colour scheme.”

In another ‘first’ for the team today, Spyker reserve and test driver Markus Winkelhock got his debut run in the new F8-VII. “We ran a 50km shakedown of the third chassis today and completed the final control system tests. We didn’t have any issues during the day; it was mainly about making sure that the third chassis was reliable. As it’s such a short run today, it’s difficult to make an accurate comparison of the 2006 and the 2007 cars, but I can tell the new car is more stable – it also looks fantastic.”

In addition to the systems checks on the car, the team completed several race pit stops with tyre changes and refuelling as preparations for the Australian Grand Prix continue apace.