Successful shakedown for first 'true' Spyker.

Christijan Albers put the first miles on the new Spyker-Ferrari F8-VII at a frosty Silverstone this morning, as the Dutch outfit completed a successful shakedown of its 2007 machine.

The F8-VII is the first proper Spyker Formula One car, and the first by a Dutch team after buying out the former Midland and Jordan operation last September. It is the machine on which the squad has pinned its hopes of turning around its fortunes on the back of a 2006 season that saw a best finish of ninth for Tiago Monteiro in Hungary and a lowly tenth-placed finish in the constructors' world championship.

Albers completed around 200 kilometres in total, while focusing on testing systems and gathering data on the new car in advance of the first 'proper' test in Barcelona next week.

Freezing and icy conditions limited track time, however chief technical officer, Mike Gascoyne, was pleased with the team's progress throughout the day.

"We've had a very successful shakedown despite the cold weather and icy track, which limited our running to between 11am and 4pm, and we had no major mechanical problems," he revealed. "It's a tribute to the hard work of the guys back at the factory that we got the car ready on time and everything ran very smoothly. We expect similar track conditions tomorrow, when we look to continue testing the systems and picking up as much data as we can for Barcelona."

Albers, like Gacoyne was also happy, even if he did only do 38 laps: "Today we had a really good day, even with the icy track and cold weather. I was happy to do a few laps and learn about the car, and really pleased that there were no major problems. We've now got a good platform for the first test in Barcelona next week, especially with Adrian putting in some more miles tomorrow. Everyone has worked so hard to get the car out on time - they deserve a lot of thanks."

The F8-VII's second shakedown day will take place on Wednesday - again at Silverstone, with Adrian Sutil replacing Albers.