The new Brawn GP team will make their Formula One debut when they test at Barcelona next week.

The Honda Formula One team’s saviour Brawn is now embarking on a hectic schedule of testing as the team plays catch-up ahead of the season-opening Melbourne Grand Prix on March 29.

The Brawn GP team, with experienced drivers Jenson Button (pictured) and Rubens Barrichello at the wheel, will make their track debut at the Catalunya circuit on Monday.

The distinctive black, white and yellow BGP 001 car - powered by a new Mercedes-Benz engine - will then move on to Jerez in Spain for a further four days of testing from Sunday week.

Given the short time available to the British-based team, Brawn is expecting some reliability issues to surface, but is nevertheless thrilled that at least the team will be on the grid in Australia.

“The biggest hurdle we faced was being in a position to race in Melbourne and we will now be able to achieve that target,” he said in an interview with his new team’s website.

“Initially we may experience some reliability issues resulting from the lack of track testing but we feel we have a good car and we hope that our performance will be respectable.

“We are confident in the fundamental design principle of our car and look forward to the opportunity to develop it further as the season progresses.”

Looking ahead to Melbourne he added: “The debut race weekend with 20 brand new cars is always difficult to predict and on this occasion I’m not even going to try.

“What I know we can take away from Melbourne is an enormous sense of pride and achievement at having already met and overcome our biggest challenge.”

He believes that in Button and Barrichello he has two experienced drivers who can see the team through what promises to be a demanding first season.

“They will enable us to hit the ground running when we test for the first time in Barcelona next week. After four years as team-mates, their experience with our team in Brackley, our systems and our engineers, will prove a real asset.

“Jenson and Rubens have always had a great relationship and we expect to see them pushing each other hard over the season to get the best performance from the car and drive forward its development.

“Both drivers are extremely motivated having trained hard over the winter to ensure that they were in the best possible physical condition. We look forward to their first thoughts on the BGP 001 at next week’s Barcelona test.”

AFP