The car's pace steadily improved over the course of the season, however their main rivals Marussia and Caterham improved too, leaving it as the outright slowest car on the grid that season, only managing once to beat any of their rivals on outright pace, with de la Rosa edging out Timo Glock at Germany and Karthikeyan closing in on him in the closing laps. It joined the Marussia MR01 in being the only cars that year not to use KERS, and also lacked a brake bias handle in the cockpit. The team admitted they were expecting to miss the qualifying cut-off, with team principal Luis Pérez-Sala predicting that the car would not be fully capable of qualifying until the second or third race of the season. Although both cars took part in qualifying, neither driver qualified within 107% of the fastest time set in the first qualifying period, and they were blocked from starting the race for the second year in a row. The car was completed on time and approved by the race stewards. The team requested the race stewards delay scrutineering of the car until Friday morning, with the FIA agreeing.
The team faced further complications at the Australian Grand Prix when the chassis intended to be raced by Pedro de la Rosa was not finished before scrutineering on Thursday afternoon. The car was launched with a white, gold and red livery, their third livery change in as many years. The car made its on-track debut at the circuit on 5 March, during a combined shakedown and filming day, with Karthikeyan completing the maximum allowable one hundred kilometres for a shakedown. The team initially attempted to have the car ready for the third test of the off season in Barcelona, but were unable to make the deadline. The car successfully completed its final crash test on 24 February.
The car was expected to be launched on 21 February, but was delayed until March when it failed two of its mandatory crash tests, and was unable to take a third test as passing one of the tests it failed was a pre-requisite of this third test.
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