Glock signs long-term contract with Virgin

Following an exciting few weeks for the Virgin Racing team, the good news just keeps coming. As Timo Glock prepares to race in his home Grand Prix he clearly feels 'at home' in the team as well after signing a new long-term contract.

Timo joined us in 2009, bringing invaluable Formula One racing experience as we were being built from the bottom up. This was Timo’s clear commitment from the beginning - he wanted to take his career to the next level by helping to transform the fortunes of a fledgling team and be intrinsic to its development and future success.

The past 18 months of racing have been challenging but rewarding for us, but earlier this month we signalled the seriousness of our intent to become a real contender in Formula One with two major announcements that represent an exciting new chapter in our development. We concluded a long-term Technical Partnership with McLaren Applied Technologies which will see us benefit from access to McLaren facilities, knowledge and capabilities. We also acquired a new leading-edge technical centre in Banbury, UK, from where we will progress our plans to develop a tailor-made new facility more suited to our long-term tenure within the sport. Marussia Virgin Racing’s future now looks extremely promising.

Today’s announcement brings us vital continuity as our development gathers pace and represents another key building block in Marussia Virgin Racing’s ambitious plan to be competing at the front of the field by 2014.

Andy Webb: “We are delighted to have agreed a new long-term contract with Timo, which represents another significant step in our plans for Marussia Virgin Racing. Timo’s contribution to the team over the past 18 months has been immeasurable and he has certainly lived up to his commitment to help build a team from within. It has been a tough climb at times, and for a driver of his unquestionable record it must have proved frustrating at times. Both he and the team are fortunate to be faced with the opportunities we have now created for ourselves when we are still very much in our infancy.

“Timo is vastly experienced whilst still bringing youth and great spirit to the team. We are looking forward to seeing what we can do together to extract the maximum from our resources, particularly the promising technical partnership with McLaren. We look forward to continuing the positive relationship we enjoy with Timo.”

Timo Glock: “I am very happy to confirm that Marussia Virgin Racing will be my home for the next few years of my Formula One career. I’m especially pleased to be able to announce this news ahead of my home Grand Prix in Germany today, where my career began. The past 18 months of racing have been quite tough, although this was always to be expected. As a driver I knew I would have to go back a few steps in order to move forward. Now we have tasted the difficult times together I can’t wait to be with the team when we start to enjoy the good times. And I know they are coming. I’ve seen tremendous belief from Marussia and hard work and commitment across the whole team. With the additional steps we have taken – the technical partnership with McLaren and bringing the whole team together – I believe we can achieve our goals together. This year we’ve demonstrated that we know how to build a reliable car, and with the resources we now have we should be able to add to that a high-performing car. After that it’s all about gradual but significant steps forward.”