Spanish GP: Virgin qualifying report

The first Qualifying session with the revised VR-01 revealed a positive step forward for Virgin Racing today, confirming that the car is a good basis for development during the coming European season.

Timo Glock was at the wheel of the modified chassis, however both drivers enjoyed a positive morning of free practice running. Despite a red flag halfway through the session, both Timo and team-mate Lucas di Grassi managed to work their way through their intended programme of changes, ranging from aero and mechanical adjustments as well as final evaluation of both tyre choices.

In this afternoon's decisive Qualifying session, Timo and Lucas qualified 21st and 22nd. Lucas was pleased with his lap but Timo had hoped for more and was disappointed that the team were unable to further add to its tally of qualifying as the fastest of the new teams.

Timo Glock #24
"It wasn't an ideal Qualifying for us today as we were unable to secure the position of best of the new teams. In Qualifying the car didn't work quite how I expected and so while it is a good basis there is still more that we need to bring to the car through our development plan with the revised VR-01. We're getting good at sorting out our problems and we're starting to go in the right direction, so we just have to keep pushing very hard to see the return we need."

Lucas di Grassi #25
"I had a reasonably positive Qualifying session today. Although it isn't ideal that I don't have the new car also, I was pleased that I was able to get a good lap and end the session just a tenth away from Timo. Generally I'm pretty pleased with my performance so far this weekend and I'm confident that we can have a strong race tomorrow."

Nick Wirth, Technical Director
"Overnight we analysed the data from our first day with Timo's new car and added some late arriving parts to complete the package. The aero characteristics of the new car are different from the original version, and so we completed our first round of investigations with Timo in P3 and we ended up happy with the results - the on-track measured downforce gain of the new configuration coming in a little bit ahead of our CFD predictions, which has been the same with all our upgrades this year. In qualifying, we chose to save a fresh set of option tyres for the race and both drivers did a good job. For obvious reasons, the new car is a bit heavier than the old one, and we are still fine-tuning its new characteristics, so we haven't shown the true difference in pace that the car gives, but that will come soon. Considering that our major performance steps are yet to come in the next races, I'm pleased by how close our sector times are to our competitors. The team and our major suppliers have been completely focused on improving our transmission and hydraulics reliability in the lead-up to this race, so I'm hoping we can show a step forward in this respect by late tomorrow afternoon. Finally, I must pay tribute to the guys in the garage for their incredible work this weekend."

-source: virgin