Virgin Racing's technical director Nick Wirth says his team's performance at the Bahrain Grand Prix justifies its all-CFD design approach.
Virgin was the best of the new teams in qualifying yesterday and was running in front of its direct rivals before both Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi were forced to retire.
Di Grassi suffered a hydraulic fitting failure, similar to those that had hindered him during the weekend. Glock was forced to retire after losing his gears.
Wirth admitted the double retirement was disappointing, but he believes the team's approach to not use a wind tunnel has been justified by its performance during the weekend.
"So we leave our first grand prix disappointed that we did not manage to get either car to the finish but at least we haven't had a repeat of any of our winter testing problems," he said.
"Most importantly, we now know that our faith in the all-CFD design approach was justified, as we have demonstrated that we have built a competitive Formula 1 car.
"That is one reward that we can take away from this weekend. Finally, congratulations to Lotus Racing on achieving a two-car finish in their first race.
"It is a fantastic achievement for a new team and I hope we can get Timo and Lucas to the flag in Melbourne in two weeks' time."
News from Formula One in the Formation Lap.
Showing posts with label Wirth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wirth. Show all posts
Monday, 15 March 2010
Monday, 22 February 2010
Wirth admits Virgin behind schedule
Virgin Racing technical director Nick Wirth has admitted that the persistent hydraulic problems his team suffered at Jerez this week have delayed its test programme.
Wirth said the intention had been to bring aerodynamic developments to Barcelona next week, but with Lucas di Grassi and Timo Glock only able to complete 144 laps between them over the past four days at Jerez, Virgin will now have to keep focusing on reliability work in the final test.
"It has been a character-building week, that's for sure," said Wirth. "Despite our best efforts to cure the hydraulic problem which has beset our entire test, this was simply not achievable with the components that we had available in the field.
"The specific problem is that we have been losing hydraulic oil at a rate which has limited the number of laps we can achieve on each run and so we look forward to receiving updated parts for the Barcelona test, which we expect to fully resolve the problem.
"Having said that, we will now need to continue focusing on reliability work when we would have liked to introduce our Bahrain-specification aerodynamic updates. The revised programme means we will be reserving our full set of aero warpaint for the first race."
But Wirth added that while the test delays were a blow, he was very optimistic about the VR-01's pace.
"On a positive note, despite these issues, we have actually completed a lot of good race preparation work and it is satisfying to see the car's potential with minimum set-up changes or development, bearing in mind that we have consistently run with a healthy amount of fuel," he said.
"Indeed, none of our lap times have been achieved with anything close to qualifying fuel and therefore we are not letting the frustrations in one specific area overshadow what has generally been an encouraging start to our development programme."
Wirth said the intention had been to bring aerodynamic developments to Barcelona next week, but with Lucas di Grassi and Timo Glock only able to complete 144 laps between them over the past four days at Jerez, Virgin will now have to keep focusing on reliability work in the final test.
"It has been a character-building week, that's for sure," said Wirth. "Despite our best efforts to cure the hydraulic problem which has beset our entire test, this was simply not achievable with the components that we had available in the field.
"The specific problem is that we have been losing hydraulic oil at a rate which has limited the number of laps we can achieve on each run and so we look forward to receiving updated parts for the Barcelona test, which we expect to fully resolve the problem.
"Having said that, we will now need to continue focusing on reliability work when we would have liked to introduce our Bahrain-specification aerodynamic updates. The revised programme means we will be reserving our full set of aero warpaint for the first race."
But Wirth added that while the test delays were a blow, he was very optimistic about the VR-01's pace.
"On a positive note, despite these issues, we have actually completed a lot of good race preparation work and it is satisfying to see the car's potential with minimum set-up changes or development, bearing in mind that we have consistently run with a healthy amount of fuel," he said.
"Indeed, none of our lap times have been achieved with anything close to qualifying fuel and therefore we are not letting the frustrations in one specific area overshadow what has generally been an encouraging start to our development programme."
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Wirth: Glock a huge asset to Virgin
Virgin Racing technical director Nick Wirth says he regards Timo Glock's faith in the team as a major endorsement of its potential.
Former Toyota driver Glock made an early decision to join the new squad rather than chasing vacancies with established teams.
Wirth said signing an experienced driver had always been a priority for him, having seen the positive effect that David Brabham had on the Acura sportscar project, in which Wirth Research designed the LMP cars.
"The day Timo signed I nearly burst into tears, I couldn't believe it," said Wirth.
"I stuck my whole company's reputation and our contract on the line at one particular moment during the Acura programme to get David Brabham to drive the car, because David was one of my F1 drivers [at Simtek], and I know as an engineer how critical it is to have a lead driver with lots of experience and who is someone you can trust, and who is quick and all the other bits and pieces.
"I said to management, I hope we're not forced to get two young, inexperienced drivers who help the finance by bringing budget.
"And when Timo came along, quite late on in the process, on his way to look at another Formula 1 team, and we spent three hours together and he saw the process, he understood this digital [design] process because he's got friends who drive my Acuras.
"So he phones them up and says 'what's this nutter like, is he any good?', and they told him whatever, and he just flew back with his manager and said 'we're going to do this'.
"I was just literally over the moon, because Timo to me represents all that I wanted - someone who has driven the slick tyres, he has two years' experience, he's a GP2 champion and he's so young, and so grounded."
Virgin has signed former Renault test driver and GP2 frontrunner Lucas di Grassi as Glock's team-mate, a choice that Wirth is also very happy with.
"We've got a lot of engineers from Renault who have joined us," he said. "Lucas has been a test driver there for two years. They were super-enthusiastic about Lucas's testing ability, feedback and skill."
Former Toyota driver Glock made an early decision to join the new squad rather than chasing vacancies with established teams.
Wirth said signing an experienced driver had always been a priority for him, having seen the positive effect that David Brabham had on the Acura sportscar project, in which Wirth Research designed the LMP cars.
"The day Timo signed I nearly burst into tears, I couldn't believe it," said Wirth.
"I stuck my whole company's reputation and our contract on the line at one particular moment during the Acura programme to get David Brabham to drive the car, because David was one of my F1 drivers [at Simtek], and I know as an engineer how critical it is to have a lead driver with lots of experience and who is someone you can trust, and who is quick and all the other bits and pieces.
"I said to management, I hope we're not forced to get two young, inexperienced drivers who help the finance by bringing budget.
"And when Timo came along, quite late on in the process, on his way to look at another Formula 1 team, and we spent three hours together and he saw the process, he understood this digital [design] process because he's got friends who drive my Acuras.
"So he phones them up and says 'what's this nutter like, is he any good?', and they told him whatever, and he just flew back with his manager and said 'we're going to do this'.
"I was just literally over the moon, because Timo to me represents all that I wanted - someone who has driven the slick tyres, he has two years' experience, he's a GP2 champion and he's so young, and so grounded."
Virgin has signed former Renault test driver and GP2 frontrunner Lucas di Grassi as Glock's team-mate, a choice that Wirth is also very happy with.
"We've got a lot of engineers from Renault who have joined us," he said. "Lucas has been a test driver there for two years. They were super-enthusiastic about Lucas's testing ability, feedback and skill."
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