Virgin Racing

The team was first formed as Manor Grand Prix as a partership between Manor Motorsport and Wirth Research.

Initially, Virgin's Alex Tai was the Team Principal (person in charge).^[5] Less than one month after the Virgin partnership was officially launched, Tai left his position and John Booth took over as team principal^[6]

The team will use engines supplied by Cosworth. Manor Motorsport are best known as a Formula Three team. They currently competes in the Formula Three Euroseries, and helped launch the careers of World Champions Kimi Räikkönen and Lewis Hamilton. Race car preparation and racing operations will be run from its headquarters in Dinnington, South Yorkshire. Wirth Research will design, develop and build the cars from its base in Bicester.

The Virgin Racing also have plans to create a "Driver Academy", a series of racing teams starting in the new GP3 Series and advancing all the way up to Formula One.^[7]

 

Virgin's car for 2010, the VR-01, is the first F1 car designed entirely using Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) computer simulation technology.^[8] CFD is computer program used to design a race car that will move through the air well. It is used to replace test models of cars in a wind tunnel to see how well they perform.

On 17 November 2009 Virgin announced that former Toyota driver Timo Glock would be the team's lead driver for the 2010 season. The driver has signed a two-year contract with a one-year extension offer.^[9] Long-time Brazilian GP2 regular Lucas di Grassi will join him. Fellow former GP2 driver Luiz Razia will be the testing and reserve driver. Álvaro Parente also signed as a test driver, but left the team prior to the launch of the VR-01.^[10] The 2010 car was officially launched on the team's website on 3 February 2010.^[11][12] The following two days, Virgin ran the car at a private event at Silverstone.^[13]

After the start of the 2010 season, it was discovered that the race car's fuel tank is too small. Starting in 2010, cars cannot be refueled during the race. The Virgin cars would not be able to finish any races unless the drivers ran at a reduced speed to conserve fuel. The team has been allowed to redesign the chassis to increase the fuel tank size.^[14]

The team was not able to complete a full race with both cars until the Spanish Grand Prix, the fifth race of the season. The team finished last in 12 position.

During the warm-up just before the race, Timo Glock had a problem with his race car. Fifth gear in the transmission broke. Glock returned to the garage area. The team mechanics tried to fix the car. The team was not able to fix the transmission before the race started. Glock did not start the race, and was listed as DNS for Did Not Start.^[15] The team finished last again the standings for a second year in a row.

Marussia bought a controlling stake and the team was rebranded. Virgin stated they were fully committed to the team and were remaining as a sponsor. Timo Glock remained as a driver and scored the teams highest finish(a 12th in Singapore). The team occupied 10th spot in the championship for the majority of the season but they were beaten in the final race by Caterham. They finished the season 11th and well infront of HRT.

 

Virgin purchased eighty percent of the team, as part of sponsorship arrangement.^[16] The official FIA entry list for 2010 announced on 30 November 2009 showed that Manor GP had been entered as Virgin Racing.^[17]

The team's partners for 2010 included

• Tyre (tire) supplier Bridgestone
• IT services company UST Global^[18][19]
• Environmental technology company Carbon Green
• Shampoo brand Clear
• Information technology firm CSC
• Foreign exchange traders FxPro
• Clothing company Kappa
• The Oxygen investment group
• Russian sports car manufacturer Marussia.
  • On 13 January 2010, reports emerged revealing that Virgin had paid an extra one and a half million pounds to Cosworth to have the CA2010 unit rebranded as a Marussia, though both Virgin Racing and Cosworth have denied the story.^[20]

On 14 December 2009, Lloyds Banking Group announced that it had invested ten million pounds in the team.^[21] This is a reverse the recent trend of financial institutions such as ING and RBS to withdraw sponsorship. It remains unclear as to whether or not the Lloyds logo will appear on the cars.

(key) (results in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Chassis	Engine	Tyres	Drivers	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	Points	WCC
2010	Virgin VR-01	Cosworth CA2010 2.4 L V8	B		BHR	AUS	MAL	CHN	ESP	MON	TUR	CAN	EUR	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	SIN	JPN	KOR	BRA	ABU	0	12th
				Timo Glock	Ret	Ret	Ret	DNS	18	Ret	18	Ret	19	18	18	16	18	17	Ret	14	Ret	20	Ret
				Lucas di Grassi	Ret	Ret	14	Ret	19	Ret	19	19	17	Ret	Ret	18	17	20	15	DNS	Ret	NC	18
2011	Virgin MVR-02	Cosworth CA2011 2.4 L V8	P		AUS	MAL	CHN	TUR	ESP	MON	CAN	EUR	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	SIN	JPN	KOR	IND	ABU	BRA	0	12th
				Timo Glock	Ret	16	21	DNS	19	Ret	15	21	16	17	17	18	15	Ret	20	18	Ret	19	Ret
				Jérôme d'Ambrosio	14	Ret	20	20	20	15	14	20	17	18	19	17	Ret	18	21	20	16	Ret	19

^* Season in progress.

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Virgin Racing.

• Official website Archived 2014-05-27 at the Wayback Machine