Virgin Racing Jerez test II notes day one

Virgin Racing were trackside in Jerez today where the team's second full test with the VR-01 got underway. After a successful conclusion to its testing debut here last week, the team experienced more of the rough than the smooth today when an ...

Virgin Racing were trackside in Jerez today where the team's second full test with the VR-01 got underway. After a successful conclusion to its testing debut here last week, the team experienced more of the rough than the smooth today when an elusive hydraulics problem proved hard to pin down. After dodging the wet running that is starting to dominate pre-season testing, the team were forced to spend the afternoon in diagnostic mode conducting a series of out-laps to try to flush out the root cause through the hydraulic system. As a result, the team completed just 10 laps of the 4.5km circuit and were unable to set a representative lap time.

Nick Wirth, Technical Director of Virgin Racing, commented: "We have experienced a sequence of hydraulic problems which were tricky to diagnose on a new car. This caused us to suffer long and frustrating periods confined to the garage and when we did venture out on track it was purely to conduct a series of exploratory out-laps to try to understand if we had cured the problem. We eventually discovered the real issue, albeit rather late in the day. Nonetheless, having fully identified the problem, we can fix it tonight and look forward to what we hope will be a more constructive day of running for Timo and the team tomorrow."