Rusinov to reap benefit of Midland F1 arrival.

New Jordan/Midland boss Alex Shnaider has made no secret of his desire to increase the presence of his native Russia on the Formula One grid, and Roman Rusinov could find himself ideally placed to take advantage of that passion.

The single-seater ace has already reached the heights of the Euro 3000 series, plus occasional international sportscar outings, but has yet to find the finance required to make the break into the top flight. Now, however, Shnaider's arrival could pave the way for the second Russian, after the lamentable Sergey Zlobin, to try an F1 car for size.

"We're planning to take an existing Russian driver, Roman Rusinov, to be one of Midland F1's test drivers this year," the man who, this week, signed Tiago Monteiro and Narain Karthikeyan to his grand prix line-up revealed to Canada's Toronto Star newspaper, "Our the chassis, will be ready from Dallara at the end of the summer, and Roman will start testing that car. He might test the Jordan car before then, but we haven't determined that yet."

Despite having only just completed the acquisition of Jordan, Shnaider is also casting his eye over the wider racing scene in order to both foster talent and promote the Midland name in conjunction with its F1 activities.

"We are planning to run a Midland F3 team in the Euroseries," he confirmed, "We will take some young Russian drivers and develop them through F3 and, then, if they're worthy, take them up to Formula One."

Having revealed that he decided to buy Jordan, and enter F1, to promote his company to others looking to break into Russian markets and vice versa, Shnaider said that he would not change the name initially because he wanted Midland F1 to 'enter' the grand prix arena with its own car, and not one that had been largely completed before his arrival.

"The original plan was to start our own team, [but] Bernie Ecclestone explained to me that it would be in our best interests, financially, to purchase Jordan," he explained, "But we arranged for Dallara to design a new car, different from the Jordan. When it is ready, it really will be a new operation.

"This will be a learning year for us. We have to evaluate everything at Jordan and eliminate the weaknesses. Then, we will take what we have with Jordan, take what we have with Dallara, and try to produce a good car - a Midland car - for 2006.

"Every year, we will aim to make the car better and better. We will invest money. Obviously, we want to do well, we want to win. But we have to be realistic. We have to see what kind of budget we will be operating with. I always said the team would operate with an annual budget of approximately $100 million, [but] it would not necessarily all come from Midland. If we take on partners, or sponsors, they will also put up some money to help with the budget. As long as you use the money in a prudent way, it's possible to achieve good results. I believe, if we are in the midfield, it will be a good result for us. We don't have to be in the top four."