Virgin terminate technical ties with Wirth Thu, 02 Jun 11:06:00 2011 ShareretweetEmailPrintRussian-backed Virgin Racing has severed ties with technical director Nick Wirth and his design company after a disappointing start to the Formula One season. Chief executive Andy Webb said that Russian sportscar maker Marussia Motors, who bought a significant stake in the team last November, and the board had carried out a comprehensive review of the team. Virgin Racing have yet to score a point since making their F1 debut last season and have moved no closer to the midfield teams. Germany's Timo Glock did not finish last weekend's Monaco Grand Prix while Belgian team mate Jerome d'Ambrosio was classified 15th and three laps behind Red Bull's race winner Sebastian Vettel. "Marussia's goal remains to be in a position to be able to challenge for a podium finish at the inaugural Russian Grand Prix in Sochi 2014," Webb said in a statement. "With this in mind, it is readily apparent that the Team must take major steps in order to accelerate its rate of improvement. Consequently, the decision has been taken that the team will take greater control of its own destiny," Webb added. "Accordingly, having consulted fully with our existing technical partner during the course of the past few weeks, we have been obliged to terminate our relationship with them." The car has been designed by Wirth Research and is the only one on the starting grid to have been designed entirely by computer and without the use of a wind tunnel. However, the team did put the car in a wind tunnel to try and resolve problems with the design late last year. ALTERNATIVE PATH Team principal John Booth told Reuters last month that there was a possibility the team could consider a wind tunnel programme now, although always within a tightly controlled budget estimated at around $50 million. "What has been disappointing has been our pace," Booth said. "It's aero efficiency. We're nowhere with it." Last year's car started the team's debut season embarrassingly with a fuel tank too small to be sure of finishing all races. "Looking ahead, we will now be pursuing an alternative technical path and look forward to announcing our plans in more detail over the coming weeks," Webb added. He did not mention any names, but former Renault F1 engineering head Pat Symonds has been advising Virgin as a consultant. Symonds is, however, barred from Formula One until 2013 as a result of his role in a race-fixing controversy that also led to Renault being handed a suspended permanent ban. "I believe that the steps we are taking in terms of our technical leadership and operational excellence will provide us with the robust foundation required to go on and achieve our performance objectives in the years ahead," Webb said.
No ****!..... He's obviously on the ball...... Go & build a friggin' wind tunnel, hire some egg-heads and get with the program. "Challenge for a podium in 2014" - Good luck with that..... Cheers, Ian
Have to admit I spit out my coffee when I read that line! I think the owner of Virgin is getting a good dose of reality check...Brawn was "lightning in a bottle" Frank
+1 I read somewhere recently they were looking at acquiring the old Arrows / Super Aguri facility - Anyone know if that includes a tunnel? Cheers, Ian
+1!! I'd read last year already that one of the other teams said that the problem with CFD was that it was still not capable of handling the intricacies of items like the front wing end plates, which have become so critical to the overall aero performance with the introduction of the wider front wings last year. Nick Wirth aside, nobody else felt that a CFD-only solution was viable, and Wirth pretty much proved them right. At the opposite end of the grid, the car winning 5 of 6 races this season was sketched on a drawing board, digitized, then modeled and put in a wind tunnel.
