Midland: We are ready to push.

Midland MF1 Racing managing director, Colin Kolles has revealed that he thinks they have the 'right ingredients' now to go forward after a difficult season in 2005.

Midland made their debut in the FIA Formula One World Championship last year after acquiring the Jordan team just prior to the start of the season. The Silverstone based squad has now been re-branded and heads to Bahrain for the first race of the 2006 with a striking new look and a desire to build on the lessons learned over the course of '05.

"We have worked very hard to get to where we are today, and we're continuing to work hard every day," said Kolles.

"A lot of effort and investment has gone into re-building this team, from the infrastructure at the factory, to new race equipment and a new car. We don't expect things to change overnight, but we now have the right ingredients on this team to push forward and that's a good first step. Bahrain represents a fresh start for us, and we're determined to make the most of it."

Midland, like most of their rivals, have been busy testing in recent months - and they are hopeful the new M16 chassis will be a significant leap forward compared to its predecessor, the EJ15B.

"After a long winter of testing, it's very exciting to be back in action," added Monteiro, who will again drive for the team. "The first race is always very interesting; there are so many unknowns. Everyone on the team is very keen and motivated. I think we did an excellent job of getting ready this winter. We did way more testing than last year, and that can only help us down the road. We have to stay realistic and focused on working on moving in the right direction, but everything is looking positive at the moment. We're ready to go racing."

Christijan Albers meanwhile will join Monteiro in the sister car, replacing Narain Karthikeyan and he reckons they should be able to finish in the top eight in the constructors' championship, something that will mean beating Super Aguri, Scuderia Toro Rosso and at least one other outfit.

"I think we're doing quite reasonable, but it's never enough in Formula 1. We need to push every day, every minute, every second, to get the results we're looking for," continued Albers. "But the most important thing is that everybody is really motivated and everybody is pushing really hard to achieve our goals, which is to crack the top eighth and score points whenever we can. Based on what I've seen so far, it's a reasonable goal but we have to keep working really hard for that. We've seen constant improvements in testing: the car is still quite new, but we keep finding performance improvements and it keeps getting faster all the time."