Well that's certainly not worked out well for them. Hopefully the performance updates they mentioned for Glock can keep them ahead/equal to the Lotus', bit of a shame for di Grassi having to go without. I really want Virgin to turn out good, if only because I like the livery.

I think that says more about the number of staff and manufacturing capability at Wirth than anything else. Given other tubs and people to work on said tubs in the UK they wouldn't need to be concerned with getting the tubs and personnel back in the the four or five day delay from the volcano. They've known about this issue for a while now and given the proper resources could have been well on the way to a fix. I'd guess that if the only tubs they have with which to work are stuck on a plane with the only staff that work on them it's not going to be very easy to get it fixed in a timely manner.

agreed, it is the best livery on the grid. shame when you see them get lapped it's like, oh theres a virgin, oh no... it's gone again.

But saying that, I think they who dare try succeed in being the lifeblood of the sport, everybody loves an underdog, and virgin, lotus, and HRT are true underdogs, all are good in my eyes!

Sharkfin

Another team converted eh? Well good for them, glad they're trying some more advanced aero.

Any news on any other updates aside from the one fuel-tank adjusted car? Any aero updates that Wirth has managed to put on the car will be greatly needed, especially if Lotus make the big leap this weekend. That front wing of the Virgin is probably the least developed on the grid, and we all know how much the front wing can affect the car overall...

agreed, hopefully something to keep them up with lotus with matched reliability... I remain quitely confident that they have got some good updates coming.

- New floor with a more agressive diffuser design: triple diffuser. The team expects a lot of extra downforce from this.
- New front wing
- New (longer) engine cover; which the team assures is not solely to draw attention to one of their new sponsors.
- Lengtened wheelbase; to incorporate the new fuel cell.

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2010/05/07/upda...riple-diffuser/

For some reason, this just looks weird

That looks like the coffee machine at work.

poker advertising interesting.

What a pile of crap Wirth created, now 1 second behind Lotuses. And new version seems to be slower than older considering Glock > Di Grassi.

Big thumbs up to Virgin, both cars to the finish at last!

Lotus seem clearly ahead in performance as things stand though, although Hispania are far back behind. Is there time to get a new chassis for Di Grassi before Monaco? Hoping for Virgin to carry on the improvements, at least they're starting to finish.

are virgin getting beaten, what is going on with them in practice?!

It's probably simply the case of another Simtek creation showing its Wirth...

Zoe

Virgin managed another double finish, better than the other newbies. Congrats to them, however before retiring di Grassi was getting beat by Senna's Hispania, which is at least a second or two behind! Has his Virgin encountered yet more problems today? Or is he just taking time with the new car.

Maybe the Virgins were a bit more reliable today, but they are dead slow, even beaten on pace by the horrible customer HRT chassis. If the trend continues, they might be the slowest of the new teams by mid-season...

I suggest that Sir Richard start practising for his stewardess job at the end of the year;)

Zoe

you are right, they are slow. I would say it's their first season, so far two cars finishing is a big step up of confidence, especially as the last adjustment package was on downforce and worked well in turkey, but also that they weren't collectively slow, Glock was fine, the grid moved before the end cars (up to barrichello at least) hadn't finished lining up before it was green, and Glock himself said he got caught out by senna because of it.

I have been looking at best lap times during the race, and Glock's actually isn't to bad, albeit probably set towards the end of the race, I wouldn't be too discouraged. Also digrassi had to have an engine change due to the already addressed by cosworth not enough power after being used problem.

I think Wirth development should take a long hard look at thinking about wind tunnels next season, unless there is suitable progression to keep both cars within half a second of lotus (allowing them at least with a fighting chance to keep pressure on the race day) they may need to look at implementing at least some wind tunnel testing to address some problems that may hone the finesse of the car.

All in all I think it was a successful Turkey race, and they definetely should feel more confident about Canada.

On a side note about Lotus, it was a shame that they couldn't complete the race, they looked like they at least upon driver skill had a chance at holding off the williams and maybe buemi earlier on for a little while, that was an interesting development as so far this season it has been an easy pipping on the new teams, and both drivers didn't look so confident that time round.

I think Virgin has been a bit of a disappointment so far. I mean they had the longest time of the new teams to design and develop the car before Bahrain, and yet it seems that it was nowhere near ready. It's unreliable and even slower than Lotus, which still looks like something from the mid 90's. On the other hand, I'm quite hopeful that there is still more potential in the car. The drivers have been ok. Glock has done a good job by teasing the Lotus cars. Di Grassi has had difficult time as the #2 driver but he's kept it on the road. Don't know if they're still developing this car, but I'd would really like see them challenging Trulli and Kovalainen more.

The biggest reason for not using wind tunnel was definitely money. Wirth and his CFD are a clever and cheap way of designing a car, they just need more knowledge and data of how the CFD actually corresponds to aerodynamics in reality. The cars change once again for next year, and for a small team like Virgin, it's important that they're developing the new car early enough. Ofcourse, those parts that doesn't consern the removing of DD etc. can and should be already tested this year, so that they can see what's working and what's not.

lotus definetely pulled away last race, virgin got lucky they had reliability for once. they were only 2.3 seconds off the fastest lap set also, but that was set towards the end. I'm not dissapointed too badly, but with teams like HRT in a spin, still outqualifying digrassi (albeit with an underperforming engine) says to me they are one position lower than they expected to be-above lotus. Lotus' speed of development has been pretty impressive, but we shall see towards to the end of the year how they do, as they are cutting their experience of this season to concentrate on next season. I agree about CFD, it looked like egg on his face at first, but it appears to be working ever so slightly, although monaco was a blip,, it's an understandable blip as a helluva track. we shall see how canada pans out. I understand virgin have had quite a lot focused on downforce, not sure how this will work for canada?

i would like to also add, don't lotus allegedly burn £60m a year where as virgin are on £40m a year, not sure where i read that, but they are working on a tighter shoestring budget.

You're right that Virgin operates with tight budget. £40m sounds quite reasonable, because as they were planning to attend in F1, there was a lot of talk about that budget limit, which was supposed to be something like £40m. It's also a fact, that Branson doesn't give any money to the team, it's all about sponsors. I think Lotus is spending quite a lot more.

In Turkey Glock was actually quite fast. He got stuck behind Senna for quite a while, but after passing the HRT he was matching Kovalainen and Trulli in laptimes. Canada can be tricky. There's not much hi-speed corners, but straight line speed and how the car runs over the kerbs is very important.

That virtual car really sucks. It even worse than Dallara's piece of junk. Imagine if HRT had Heidfield onboard!

I Disagree. I think HRT are still the worst team for the moment, but there is challenges appearing. Lotus are pulling away in my opinion.

Glock suffered from Senna shunting him, he would have been closer than he was before he pulled out.

I'm no engineer, but even if they did stick it through a wind tunnel it wouldn't stop it breaking down every other session. Methinks the focus needs to be on the quality of components.

Yeah, CFD is only one little piece of the jigsaw.

The overall design is not perfect (to say it politely), independent whether the aero was developed in the wind tunnel or on the computer.

Zoe

come next year I think they are definetely going to need a wind tunnel, and drop the whole cheapest budget thing, they have a few sponsors now, why not go for it a little?

with the 107% rule, they are going to need to absolutely push to be on the backs of torro rosso.

I think an achievement would be mixing it with TR, sauber and lower teams like that in 2 years from now.

I don't think the CFD has really been given its chance to prove itself. Most of Virgin's development time has been spent on the fuel tank fiasco and improving reliability, we just don't know if the all CFD design can be quick.

alot of people bashing cfd should look how fast the HPD lmp2 cars were at le mans, comfortably fastest lmp2 cars. first time at le mans too...

New front wing:

http://twitpic.com/23p3yl

how did virgin perform today, thought they were adding the new updates and it was meant to add 4-5 tenths extra speed, can't see that correlate to the lap times set?

It's practice. Lotus are stopping major updates I believe, so any new updates Virgin can bring might put them in front.

Branson's honour is at stake after all

I predict Sir Richard will be losing his bet by year's end ;)

Zoe

Silverstone is Lotus' last major update.

so it looks like despite the update, lotus must have brought a like for like update too. I hope the new teams updates bring them closer to the back of the torro rossos this weekend.

someone mentioned that the virgins are looking more and more like red bulls too. The front wing looks totally different to earlier in the year.

Virgin seem to have taken a step forward with their aeroupgrade. Glock didn't have much running in the practise, and still almost beat Kovalainen. It's likely that as they get more data from the new aeroparts, they might just pass Lotus. Good job by Wirth.

The thing about that is that the cars are basically a Courage LC75 with massive bodywork and suspension alterations. The tub is still the same. Also, the LMP1 ARX-02a was a development of the same concept, only with some tweaks and modifications (like rear tires on the front axle). Here, in F1, they had to design everything starting from the bare essentials.

Only just realized how hideous the new longer wheelbase car is. That shark fin looks more like a wall, than a fin.

I couldn't care what they look like though, as long as they do the job, aesthetics never made the wonderfully beautiful Lada work. ;-)


I think all shark fins make the cars look hideous, but I like it that they have a new era of something very visible change on the car.

I am hopeful on the comment up the board that there will be a level playing field vs lotus, that would make for interesting viewing, but the teams seemed to hope up to 2 seconds of gap, my thinking is maybe inexperience of car setup and new course may be a factor there?

Half season on.....what is the verdict on Virgin's all CFD approach? Is it working?

Yes I believe it is. Virgin have not has the reliability, or the experience of the Lotus team, which I believe has held them back so far. I can see Virgin jumping Lotus soon.

What will be really interesting is how all CFD will work at the higher end of the grid, where the aero is alot more complex.

Everyone is using CFD but the big teams all have fully paid windtunnels. No reason for them to do CFD only.

I know that, I'm wondering if Virgin continue this way what the result will be. Could an all CFD car compete at the front? Would be interesting if Virgin get up there.

That is something that fascinates me as well and something i am eagerly looking forward to be proved or disproved...i.e. All CFD approach works or does not work.

The closest we got to all CFD approach was with BMW Sauber when they used their Albert 2 in place of constructing a second wind tunnel. Since then other teams have also ramped up their CFD capabilities. But Sauber seem to suffering with their aero ever since they took the half CFD/Half wind tunnel validation approach.

pretty impressed by virgin today, was watching the driver tracker and sector times and keeping an eye over progress, and they definitely had the edge over all the new teams now. it was a shame that lucas broke a part of the car on that bump going into one of the corners, but he and timo were definetely losing heikki even though heikki pulled a gap on the options. I think had heikki not crashed, he would have been overtaken by timo anyway, if you look at timos times on option race trim, they were only about 2 secs off top times. that's impressive. I hear there is another update that is coming for hungary and should if all goes to plan bring them a little gap further to the little gap they now have as the top team. if they can get their pre race sorted and keep the car reliable and away from niggles I think they can give themselves breathing space. I hope lotus do keep production up despite being adamant they are now starting to focus on the 2011 car, it would be interesting to see if the 2 good new teams starting to bolt onto the back of the torro rosso's/FI/saubers/williams etc as a more competitive backmarker. good things are starting to come together for them, but there is still a long way to go.

i would like to add timo is clearly more of a class act compared to digrassi, even though timo was stuck for a portion of the race behind senna, he still managed to eat time out of digrassi a couple of tenths comprihensively out of most sectors lap after lap.

how do all of you guys writing on mclaren/ferrari/red bull/mercedes feel about the new teams, are you enthusiastic about their progress or think they are all written off in your books (or somewhere in between)? I see a lot of posts on todays debacle of alonso, of which I am disgusted about, but I also am interested over this season/next seasons to see how quickly in this decade new teams can feasibly be created and catch up to the existing teams. I hope all 3 teams survive the season, as even HRT (if they survive) who knows, could be a new force india in a decade?

I think Lotus are perhaps a little premature in saying that in terms of beating the new teams they've "don it". The haven't yet.

Virgin and Hispania need races with lots of retirements. Hockenheim had only one barring new teams.

On the fr-canadian coverage, Christian Tortora reported that some Cosworth representative said that Virgin was the only team not paying their bills...

Was that reported elsewhere?

Tortora is a funny character but he wouldn't make stuff up...

That probably fits with Ecclestone saying a couple of teams are about to fold, but still it's surprising that HRT isn't the team not paying Cosworth already..

I haven´t heard anything about that.


I wonder if the Virgins ever going to let Andy Soucek (or Luiz Razia, maybe he gotto concentrate on GP2 ?) drive on FP1 in the coming GP´s ?

And the line up for next year ? The only thing I´ve read is that they want Glock to stay, and Di Grassi like to stay in the team.
Sergio Perez seems to be linked to Virgins next year according to some F1 articles. He is sponsored by Telmex (Teléfonos de México).
Di Grassi did tweet about sponsors, "little nationalism to support brazilians" on his twitter for some days ago...and my good intuition
said to me - Di Grassi is in great need of sponsors !?

Well... Telmex indirectly sponsors another Brazilian in F1.