Glock encouraged by first proper test day with Virgin
Virgin Racing are up and running in Jerez. The team and car arrived here yesterday, followed closely by some brand new parts which have been developed from last week’s initial shakedown data. To maximise the benefit of these new parts, the team pushed on through the night and into the morning to ensure that the car was fully updated for today.
Unfortunately, the downtime meant that the one hour of early dry-running was missed. Timo Glock eventually took to a wet circuit at 13.10 local time for his opening lap and the team limited his running to a further two very short runs to ensure the car is ready for a full day of testing tomorrow. Lucas waited patiently in the wings, keeping a close eye on the data and a close ear on Timo’s radio feedback. He will take over the reins of the VR-01 on Friday for his own two-day programme.
Nick Wirth, Virgin Racing Technical Director, said: “We’ve completed some short installation runs today without any car-related issues. A few new parts arrived here quite late yesterday and so the only option was for everyone to work through the night. Sadly, that meant we missed the dry-window, and we are not at a point where it is worth risking the car in wet running. As a result, we’ve kept things sensible and worked through the job list to prepare the car for tomorrow. Timo’s early feedback has been as it was at Silverstone and so we all look forward to a solid day of running tomorrow. It’s ironic that the weather was better on Friday in Silverstone than it has been for most of today!”
Timo Glock said: “It’s great to be back in the car and to have the chance to open it up a bit around a few full laps of the track. It’s early days but I’m encouraged by what I’ve experienced so far and in particular the fact that we haven’t had any reliability issues on the first day of our first proper test. A big thank you to the guys for working all through the night. I hope they can get some sleep tonight so we can all start to put the car through its paces tomorrow.”
