Virgin FIA Entry: Marussia Virgin Racing Car 24: Timo Glock Car 25: Jerome d’Ambrosio Engine: Cosworth V8 Team Principal: John Booth Technical Director: Nick Wirth Race Engineer Car 24: Mark Hutchison Race Engineer Car 25: Dave Greenwood Stats as of end 2010 First Entered 2010 Races Entered 19 Race Wins 0 Pole Positions 0 Fastest Laps 0 Driver World Championships 0 Constructor World Championships 0 Manor Motorsport When F3 team Manor Motorsport were given a place on the F1 grid in 2010 they commissioned Wirth Research to build them a car. Brawn sponsor Virgin became title sponsor and Virgin Racing was born Virgin Racing With Cosworth engines, Xtrac gearboxes and drivers Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi Virgin Racing embarked on their first F1 season. The VR01 chassis was the first ever F1 designed entirely using CFD, with designer Nick Wirth believing computer simulations were sufficient to not need expensive wind tunnel testing. Inevitably the team had reliability issues early on and they also discovered the fuel tank on the car wasn't sufficiently large enough to allow the team to complete full race distance. Wirth Research got a dispensation from the FIA to homologate a new chassis and by Spain both cars finished the race. The team regularly finished races but barely troubled the mid-field. By seasons end the team were placed 12th and last in the Constructors Championship based on a count back of minor placing’s having managed a highest finish of 14th. 2011 Russian carmaker Marussia have taken a controlling interest in the team for 2011 and Belgian Jerome d’Ambrosio replaces Lucas di Grassi. With the VR02 chassis Virgin will be hoping to move further up the grid in 2011.
Since this is the only team thread to have no posts and I found this I thought I may as well post it! It sounds like this is the first set of updates to be bolted on to the car since they dumped the 100% CFD approach, so it could be an interesting little sub-story to the weekend if they manage to reel Lotus in a bit, or even get lucky with some retirements and overhaul them.
http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/pic-and-marussia-virgin/ also looks like 21 year old Charles Pic is going to sign. From what I saw in GP2 this year Pic has got the skill to be a front runner - lets just hope Marussia give him the car to show it though. Comes far more highly rated than Di Grassi and D'ambrosio so I think Glock better pick his game up.
There are technically 4 now with Renault still being in the game but they will becalled Lotus next year - although technically they are Proton. Would you count Caternhem as a manufacturer for next year?
So what was the point in Branson creating or funding this team? After 2 seasons I have to say, he's not done much. But then again he's probably having fun when the commentators say "Liuzzi has split the Virgins"
He should have stopped when Brawn finished. He wanted his own F1 team but wouldn't put his money where his mouth is (Mallya and Fernandes must be getting much more marketing bang for their bucks?)
I think Branson's lost interest in F1 since the heady days of 2009, and is now more excited about cheap space travel - though some clever marketing could have linked F1 & space travel together, I suspect the team needed to be performing better for that line of packaging to work.
I don't think he's got much publicity at all, unless getting beat by HRT two years in a row, is "maximum" publicity.
Motorhead always said that when the NME gave them the title of Worst Band In The World it made their gigs sell out and was best thing that ever happened to them. Maybe Mr Branson is going to start bragging about having owned the worst F1 team ever.
Anyone read French? http://www.lequipe.fr/Formule1/breves2011/20111108_192805_un-francais-en-f1.html Apparently this says that Charles Pic has signed for next year for 'Marussia'. If this is true then I'm quite excited about it after seeing him race in GP2 last year because I think he's quite a prospect at 21. Certainly think he's the best young driver the team have taken on and once bedded in he may be showing his back end to Timo Glock. As 'Marussia' are suppose to be Mclaren's new junior team it will be interesting to see if they keep an eye on him for a possible future replacement for Button/Hamilton.
Yes. L'Equipe apparently claiming that Pic has signed to drive for Marussia (as I guess they will be by then) in 2012, alongside Glock. No official confirmation from Virgin at present, but they understand that an official announcement of the signing will be made in Brazil. That's about the size of it. Interesting to see if the rumours are true, but if so you have to feel sorry for d'Ambrosio who seems to have done a good job this season.
Linked in to the discussion in the Mclaren thread I thought you all might like to see the current Virgin Racing driving simulator. That deal with Mclaren really can't start soon enough...
Yeah, Timo Glock was round for Wurst and Schnitzel last weekend as well as getting a few laps in round Abu Dhabi on my lad's PS3.
