I guess my confusion comes from James Allen:

"Virgin has the naming rights to the team, so they will get the brand value and name recognition from the cars on the track, but they are not putting any money in. They are putting their brand in and the sponsors are partnering with them so they can access Virgin’s 100 million customers world wide and use the various Virgin channels to create brand awareness, or to make business to business sales. At least half the audience at the launch today was business people and the business case for this team seems very well thought through. The team has signed the Concorde Agreement and Tai said that Virgin plans on being around in F1 for as long as Ferrari."

Again, I wish the team all the best, but Branson . . . not.

+1.

Why would any team with the resources to do so NOT use BOTH CFD and wind tunnel?

I'll be happy to be corrected, but it seems grossly illogical that Ferrari and McLaren (at least, myabe others) would not cross-check their wind tunnel with CFD and vice-versa.

with CFD and simulation, i would say we are pretty close to the tipping-point, except i don't want to be one of those tits that says things like tipping-point.

yeah, if you had a Ferrari/McLarenesque spend, do both, knock yourself out, but those days are kinda nearly gone for most competitiors.

if you had let's say 2million to spend on a design, i think nowadays you'd get better bang for 2mill of pure CFD time as opposed to 2mill of rented wind-tunnel and smoke. spending half and half seems maybe the worst, don't get the geometric benefits of scale from really big computing, and don't get enough time in the tunnel to do more than the basic checks.

i assume Wirth has long since done the basics of calibration, so there's no need to keep testing every assumption, obviously it's a gamble, but if it was my money, i'd take it, pound the numbers and meshes for all they were worth, and see if you can find something interesting, while all the others are still playing with clay.

one things for sure, we will all see for ourselves soon enough, but Wirth seems a smart cookie, his 'let's stick the rear wheels on the front too' Acura idea needed a lot of tricky new aero to work, and that pure-CFD car seemed to work-out sorta OK.

I suppose the answer can only be that for a given amount of money and/or time, Wirth thinks he'll get a better car out of 100% resource to CFD, as opposed to 50% CFD + 50% windtunnel or whatever.

I'm pretty interested to see. It would only make sense if CFD is more developmental and less "let's see where we are" than windtunnel work. Though I haven't noticed a single F1 person agreeing with him.

As all scientists say, the proof is in the actual experiment. CFD gives a good, very good, theoretical guess of how the shape will work. It still needs to be checked in real life that it does as expected. Better do those checks in a wind tunnel than on first practise, first race.....

The Brawn Goliath

I buy what Wirth say, after looking into the list of his Client.


Branson may be not putting his money in the team, but his plot is excellent so far. Brawn could have lost tUnnel at Super Aguri tunnel and at Dome, and now CFD.

He's not wrong, is he? Though the engine compromise will have made a dent in all that 18-month efficiency.

One for discussion in another thread, perhaps?

Well race fans...
While I DO like her I must say..
Whatever chance there was of me supporting the Branson label went out the window with this stupid self promotion stunt

Jp

Do you believe everything you read in the tabloids?

Even if there's a modicum of truth to it, it's pretty plain they decided not to get a female driver because they didn't think there were any who could hold their own out there. It would only really be a problem if they stuck someone like Patrick in the car for the PR, not because she could deliver results (which I don't think she can - she's an oval racer).

It's not the tabloids' fault if Branson gives them the fuel for the fire. If the prat hadn't started off his team presentation by saying he'd wanted to field a team entirely of female drivers, then the tabloids wouldn't have had anything to get their teeth into.

I'm starting to sense that this Virgin team is going to be all about the chat, and little to do with substance... all of which will be a crying shame for Glock and di Grassi who are quality drivers.

Graeme Lowden is now listed on the Virgin Racing website as the team's director of racing:



http://www.virginracing.com/team/graeme/

I think Branson is going to be in for a surprise. Not willing to go the extra few hundred million for the extra few tenths is going to leave him at the back end of the grid, I'm afraid. That's just how F1 works.

And the ridiculous overconfidence in the new car and Nick Wirths capabilities. Lets wait a Grand Prix or two to see how the car runs first, shall we...

http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/formula-1-news/2...ssing-f1-costs/

Why don't you go and ask both Honda and Toyota how that worked out for them - both teams were spendng four hundred million dollars at one point, and how many wins did they get between them?

It's the extremes, too much and too big a team and Branson's too little. Both don't have much chance, Toyota tried the 1st and didn't succeed, while Minardi/Arrows and many others tried the other. May be only Toro Rosso succeeded thanks to a certain set of circumstances.

There's been some interesting coverage recently.

Notably that Virgin Racing has managed to attract engineers from other teams:

Branson:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/80681

Nick Wirth:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/80697

Also, Team Principal, Alex Tai has been talking about a potential young driver academy utilising Manor's Formula Renault and Formula 3 pedigree.

http://www.crash.net/f1/news/155613/2/virg...ranha_club.html

The other thing I like was Timo Glock's quote in his interview with the Official F1 site when he said:

http://www.formula1.com/news/interviews/2010/1/10308.html

Just as much as Brawn had won I should say.

Branson sold the idea well, it is like a fashion industry. He sold the idea that promotes alternative. The question is if he can continue to do so.

Could be a bit of spin there. Have they attracted current race engineers or the many that have been made redundant over the last year or 2?

That was just an exception that proves the rule.

A lot of important exceptions....

Honda had the luxury of in-season testing. They had completely abandoned their 2008 car to focus on 2009 while everyone else continued with their 2008 cars. And they had the advantage of preparing for he single biggest rule change in sixty years; in 2010, all of the cars will be based on 2009 cars.

The short version is that spending lots of money does not guarantee success. And Virgin may have an advantage in spending less than everyone else: the plan is to significantly reduce costs over the next few years. If Virgin have experience in running a team to a tight budget beforehand, don't you think they'd have an advantage over everone else when everyone else has to start cutting costs?

Well on the hind side, setting up a new team has costs that which establish teams do not have, such as picking up new factory ground, building factory and other starting costs. Who notified on this thread? I mean, I recall a post, that Virgin to make use of several locations instead of all under one roof. Such can be the risk in longer run.


Branson put away this starting costs so this is perhaps cheaper, I am not too sure if CFD cost that much less than other teams. Virgin has NO wind tunnel, but for the last tenth or hundreds, would it be smart not to have?



Virgine stepps into 'stable' reg periods as new when ALL temas collect4ed valuable datas on all tracks. Now Virgin needs some trick to get this, and Wirth being worked for Honda for many years may have benefit in recalling what he has learned before. Like Gazza did. But Iam just guessing here.

Even if they don't build one, they could hire one for a day or two to verify the CFD predictions. Flat out refusing to do so is just asking for something to not work as it was predicted to.

Renting one sometimes cost more than having one.

Like calibrating, transporting scale models, building up models and arranging data system and all that. If you have it then you do it once and then you have all the time to save 'initial set-up hours'. Gazza's got contract with Aero Lab that is way smarter than renting different (or same) tunnels each time separately and setting up each time a new.

Of course renting will cost more than having one yourself - the wind tunnel owners will make a profit because that's how business works. However, building a wind tunnel is very expensive and of course you have the rather large spatial requirements. It's not just the test section - you have a whole circuit which the air flows through and it becomes quite a big project. You'll need to employ someone to design the tunnel for you and then of course there's building regs and the like. On top of this, the tunnel will use a huge amount of power. As you increase the cross sectional area, the power requirements go up massively. I've worked with wind tunnels where the National Grid had to be informed before it was switched on.

The cost of renting a tunnel is small compared to the cost of building one yourself and running it.

True. Most teams purchased an existing ones... Still it costs a lot. In comparison to it. Virgin has none, replaces it with CFD. Sounds smart, for now.


Can they keep on impress?

The other teams have extensive CFD facilities as well. The difference is that wind tunnels offer several benefits that CFD can't offer, so they use a combination of both technologies to complement each other. However, relying on CFD without verification is a massive gamble. The first time they know how well the car works in a real airflow is at the first test, and they'll be locked into the design at that point.

I do similar work with CEM, which is computational electromagnetics. It's a different field but uses practically the same mathematical technique to solve. A computer is used to iterate towards an initial design, which we then make a prototype from. This is because the computer isn't always right! Whenever you model something, you have to make assumptions. You can reduce a material down to a set of numbers that represent its properties, but the simulation is still relying on these numbers being accurate in the first place. Computers can't model tiny manufacturing imperfections. There are several drawbacks. So this is why we prototype. Because if the computer is out, we can correct for it by adjusting the prototype until it works properly. If I was asked to make something and send it to a customer without first having a prototype to test, I would be extremely nervous.

...

I see.....



Wirth's machine worked for Honda (which one of the continents?), and hat is a kind of alarming, Iwonder if Branson knew how powerful Honda F1 was...

the result Wirth made Acura, that is US Honda, and won ALMS and that is the credit Wirth is using. See how it turns out, I can say much more than that. It is a gamble, and Branson should know about his.

The word on the street in banking circles is that the Virgin Racing team principal Alex Tai has been removed from office with immediate effect by the team’s board of directors.

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2010/01/12/...vals-at-virgin/

5live say Tai has been replaced by Booth as team principal.

Sensible decision IMO.

Any special reason for doing it now?

Very Odd???

According to Reuters its John Booth which has taken over.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE60B26M20100112

Autosport are reporting this now, so it must actually be happening.

This is good, we need racers as team principals.

From the sounds of it it seems like Alex Tai himself realized he wasn't cut out for it and wanted out. Probably something like "Give this job to the actual motorsport guy." line...

My original reaction to Tai getting the job was "Why the hell didn't they give it to John Booth?"

A month later, the board were clearly asking the same thing.

John Booth - where he should be. Maybe Tai just wanted his little bit of fame first.

It's a battle between commercialism and racing team it seems.

Same actually.

Might just be Virgin wanting to show that they were in charge perhaps?

Maybe Lloyds had something to say too. They have a hefty investment in Virgin (I still want to call it Manor)

Tai was a Virgin PR stunt, like they were saying we are called Virgin so we must have someone from Virgin as TP. They probably had an idea that Booth was the man for the job. He's been running a racing team for over 20 years now. A very successful racing team (although not F1). I'm sure he is the best man for the job, in fact he was always the best man for the job. Branson may have put a new name to the team but it is still Booth's team in a way.

I've got a feeling that there could be some political battles coming up in this team. I wouldn't be shocked if in a couple of years time (if they are still on the grid) that its name reverts back to Manor. Its just a sneaky feeling I've got. As soon as Branson gets bored with it (if he does) then it may become Manor again. Lloyds are backing the team financially quite heavily (even though the full figures have yet to be released).

Virgin rebrands Cosworth engines as Marussia:

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns22026.html

That's at odds with this article:

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/...russia-engines/

I was expecting something like this when they announced Marussia as on of the sponsors.

Edit:

WTF?!

Edit2: Shakedown at February 3rd and 4th, Silverstone. (From the above grandprix.com's article)

Virgin set to join second winter test

That means that none of the new teams will be at the first Jerez test.

Neither will RedBull.

Joe Saward isn't the sharpest arrow in the quiver.

That all sounds nice and specific