Advertisement

Virgin Racing launch VR-01 (Pictures)

3 February 2010 by Keith Collantine
Virgin VR-01

Virgin VR-01

Virgin Racing are the first of the new F1 teams to launch their 2010 car.

See below for more pictures and information about the VR-01.

Designer Nick Wirth has created the VR-01 entirely using Computational Fluid Dynamics computer modelling. This is not a new technology for F1 – but relying on it instead of a wind tunnel to create a new car is a novel approach.

Wirth believes CFD is the best way for teams to develop F1 cars under F1’s new resource restrictions:

Today is a very proud day for everyone involved with Virgin Racing, however on this occasion, where the car is the star, I want to pay tribute to all the amazing people at Wirth Research who deserve so much of the credit for the VR-01. Putting together an F1 team, assembling an engineering group and designing a new car from scratch is an epic task in the timeframe we have been working to.

I have been fortunate to have worked with the very best designers in F1 and I am well aware of exactly what it takes to be successful in this sport. When you see what the existing teams have achieved using the conventional but proven design approach, it is unsurprising that there is a great deal of scepticism about our all-CFD approach. But we are competing in a sport that is undergoing significant change having come face to face with today’s harsh economic realities. Under resource restriction, convention will become too costly and necessity really will be the mother of invention. I have absolute belief in the digital design process and the opportunity to put the all-CFD approach to the test at the highest level – to demonstrate that this could be the way for the future of F1 – is very, very exciting.
Nick Wirth

The team, originally named Manor Motorsport, are using Cosworth’s CA2010 V8 engines this year.

Team principal John Booth said:

Not only do we have a great bunch of people at Virgin Racing, we also have a great-looking car. We are delighted with our fantastic new livery which provides a fitting integration of our racing brand with our important commercial partnerships. All in all, we have a lot to look forward to as we progress towards our racing debut in Bahrain next month.
John Booth

He also explained why the car was not ready in time for the test at Valencia this week:

The first stage in our on-track evaluation programme is our two-day shakedown at Silverstone on Thursday and Friday this week, where we will conduct systematic testing and confidence-building of all car parts and on-car systems. It was always intended that we would miss the first all-team test in Valencia this week and very early on we targeted the second Jerez test in two weeks’ time for our public testing debut. It is a testament to our methodical approach and the sheer hard work of the team that we are heading to Spain a week earlier than planned to take part in the first Jerez test next week.
John Booth

Virgin chairman Sir Richard Branson added:

I’m sure we will be measured by how fast the car is on the track in Jerez next week, but I hope that doesn’t overshadow the far bigger achievement of pulling an entire racing team together and taking a brave step that defies convention. In many ways this is an exploration, but given the absolute self-belief we have seen, I can’t help but feel very excited about what we can go on to achieve in the years ahead.

For now though I’m looking forward to seeing the VR-01 on track in testing in the coming weeks as we prepare for Virgin Racing’s very first grand prix.
Richard Branson

Virgin VR-01 pictures

VR-01 dimensions

Length: 5,500mm
Height: 950mm
Width: 1,800mm
Wheelbase: 3,200mm

More VR-01 technical specifications

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

2010 F1 car launches

Image (C) Virgin Racing

Share: | | |

Read more: 2010 F1 season | Articles in full | F1 teams (active) | Virgin Racing

277 responses to Virgin Racing launch VR-01 (Pictures)

  1. Prisoner Monkeys says:

    Poor old Virgin. I can only get better from here.

  2. Invoke says:

    Looking forward to the livery on this one, hoping for a jet-black base colour.

    • That’s what Lucas di Grassi said it was going to be.

    • AP says:

      car looks fantasitic, and livery is very nice too!

      Noticed a real RBR feel to the rear of the car with the body fading to very low, also raised edges on side of nose.

      Car looks clean and simple…I think it should go ok.

      Now I am just hanging out for Red Bull to release their 2010 challenger. From what I understand it won’t be a carbon copy of what the toro rosso looks like either. yer there will be bits that interchange but RBR have a bullet up there sleeves….!

  3. pocket says:

    Virtual disaster!

  4. Scribe says:

    The fact that we can’t see the car that was supposed to be ready 43 minutes ago is strangley indicative of all the new teams this year.

    As well as it;s “innovative novel” design process.

  5. Beri says:

    Lets see how CFD holds itself to the good old windtunnel. Im more looking forward to that and how the car looks then the PR blabla that they already pulled of the closet out now.

  6. Prisoner Monkeys says:

    If Fernando Alonso was driving for Virgin, would it matter if they could get their stream up 0.6 seconds faster?

  7. Dingle Dell says:

    Virgin Racing is waiting for the proper time to launch in order not to clash with Goddess of Virginity… ye holy one

    come on come on come on… launch it!

  8. Bullfrog says:

    I like the use of “in excess of” for fuel tank size and engine weight…

  9. Untitled258 says:

    If it appears, i think it may look somewhat like the Midland of 2006. With the black/red/white livery.

  10. paxter says:

    Common no more people pics… show the damn car already.

  11. From Lucas di Grassi on Twitter (translated):

    Calm down people. There was a problem with the video that is being repaired. I’ll ask if I can put a picture on twitter!

    • Prisoner Monkeys says:

      I’m liking him already.

      • Spud says:

        He seems cool doesn’t he!?!

        • steph90 says:

          Yeah di Grassi sounds like a nice guy.

          • RogerCamp says:

            Yes, he is. I’m a brazilian and I’m following his career. I’ve not been a fan of any brazilian pilot since Senna. I’m a Kimi fan. As he’s not driving F1 this year, I’m definately going to support Lucas, he’s a very cool guy, realy good driver and deserves a chance like that.
            I love the looks of the car and livery by the way.

          • CounterStrike says:

            I am really curious to know why most Brazilians refer to “Driver” as “Pilot” ? Even the google translation of some of the Brazilian F1 site does the same.

  12. pocket says:

    You would have thought they’d have tested all the feeds etc before it all went tits up?!

    • Prisoner Monkeys says:

      Whtsto say they didn’t? I used to do the soundcheck for the auditorium at my school, and we went through the procedure a dozen times ahead of graduation to make sure it worked. It did. But when zero hour came around … well, it didn’t work the one time we needed it to.

      These things happen. You just have to be patient.

  13. sw6569 says:

    Insert Virgin joke about not being ready here.

    It’ll be really interesting to see how this team goes. More so than any other, I’m really interested to see how good CFD etc is at predicting accurately on track performance. I also like the driver pairing!

    • NomadIndian says:

      Virgin takes her time before first night out.
      Keeps thousands waiting before offering a peep.

      Yeah I know, very weak.

  14. lee williams says:

    hi first post . not very good with links ,on youtube scuadraF1 has some images of what it thinks vr01 will look like

  15. ivz says:

    I tell you what, if they are slow on the track you know that the jokes are going to come back to this! lol :-)

  16. wdf2 says:

    I like the driver pairing too – especially Glock. But, my god, what a disaster. They don’t even have a single person providing Twitter updates or a TweetPic. There’s no excuse for the lack of photos online . . . somewhere!

  17. Arne says:

    They can create a car by CFD, but they can’t set up a simple live-stream… I hope they did a better job at the car then .

  18. Prisoner Monkeys says:

    Hey, spare a thought: Virgin aren’t the only website having problems. Autosport has gone unresponsive for the past fifteen minutes as well.

  19. Invoke says:

    Perhaps Virgin Media are throttling them for excessive bandwidth use!

  20. Prisoner Monkeys says:

    Livery is red and black and described as “distinctive”:

    http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/sport/4887137.Virgin_Racing_launch_F1_car/

    • Scribe says:

      Of course its distinctive.

      Toyota described they’re livery as “distinctive”

      • Prisoner Monkeys says:

        Yeah, but this isn’t Virgin describing it.

        And in a way, Toyota was distinctive. You could pick them out as they went past. I challenge you to be able to do that between the Mercedes and McLaren, or between the Red Bull and Toro Rosso.

  21. We Want Turbos says:

    They’re not going to post pictures and ruin the big fanfare of the lauch as nobody will watch the launch.

  22. We Want Turbos says:

    The the Virgin twiiter page they say they want to get the launch on, it wont be live im presuming they dont want media leeking photos untill after it has been shown

  23. pocket says:

    If an F1 car is launched and no one sees it, does it exist? Or something similar…

  24. Just got in and thought i’d missed it but sounds like I haven’t. Is this the correct website I should be looking at?….http://www.virginracing.com/

  25. Peter says:

    yes Autosport went virtual too ;)

  26. Grace says:

    10 more minutes I’ll give them.
    I’m starting to stop caring about them anymore….

  27. richard says:

    How terrific the launch is will have nothing to do with how fast the car is. McLaren showed that last year. Not a great start I agree but get over it!

  28. Tom says:

    I’m just tired and i want to sleep. i’ve got to go to cricket in the morning. please be swift richard.

  29. Tom says:

    They really should have just joined the rest of them on monday. then any photographer there could have uploaded photos and there would be far fewer frustrated fans. i’m kinda hoping there car is a flop now so next year they’ll use the right resources and get testing earlier!!!

  30. Grace says:

    On a completely different matter, I’ve just noticed Schumacher is using a carbon fibre BLACK crash helmet.

    New design on the horizon????

  31. Christian says:

    Calm down chaps. Honestly, people always seem to think the world owes them these days. The team have worked hard on this, not you, they’ll show it when they are ready.

    Just enjoy it when it arrives and relax.

  32. Dave says:

    Maybe its an invisible car. Very advanced.

  33. Beri says:

    It seems that Di Grassi is quiet on his Twitterpage now.

  34. steph90 says:

    I’m still looking forward to them. I think their livery will be stunning. Their car isn’t going to be as slow as their launch :P these things happen though with technology like this site sued to be slow with traffic, facebook always breaks, the Ferrari stream wasn’t brilliant. It’s just one of those things. I’m sure they aren’t just sitting down drinking tea and reading the paper. They’ll be as frustrated by this as many fans are, if not more so as this is meant to be their big moment afterall. The day they’ve been planning for ages.

  35. thestig84 says:

    What a waste of time! Ive been waiting for ages…why didnt they just slap a few on twitter!? Going to loose interest of people soon!

  36. GeeMac says:

    Are they planning on racing the car entirely in the “digital realm”?

  37. Prisoner Monkeys says:

    Autosport promising pictures in mere moments.

  38. John H says:

    There it is!

  39. Dingle Dell says:

    FINALLY!!!

    thank you Keith!

  40. steph90 says:

    I really like the look of the car. Maybe slightly too much red for me but definately my favourite livery so far I think.

  41. Tom says:

    yay photo!!!!!!!!

    • TommyB says:

      Why do the cars keep getting released in the green striped tyres, they looks horrible. Why are the even green anyway?

      …Oh yeah because painting something green suddenly makes it save the planet and environmentally friendly.

  42. Grace says:

    Oooooh. Spyker orange!

  43. Prisoner Monkeys says:

    http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/2284ddd3.jpg

    That … is … ridiculous.

    Ridiculously AWESOME, that is!

  44. ivz says:

    Wow, and there it is! Great work Keith!
    Maybe they have done this on purpose? Great way to get everyone talking about it hey?

  45. Bullfrog says:

    Worth the wait, that looks fantastic

  46. Tom says:

    ferrari/redbull design i detect

    • TeviotMoose says:

      I was thinking more Mercedes – look at the wheels and rear-wing…

      Merc are the only other team (so far) to have that cut-out quadrant at the back of the rear-wing.

  47. Ned Flanders says:

    So… they’ve just stole the Midland livery from 2006…

  48. Gerdoner says:

    Looks good :)

  49. ivz says:

    I was hoping for more black than red. But it does look good!

  50. steph90 says:

    Any shots of the front wing? There seems to be a red pattern I think?

Leave a Reply

No swearing, insults, advertising or racial, sexual or similar discrimination allowed.

For more information see the F1Fanatic Comment Policy

Has your comment not appeared? Try waiting a moment and then refresh the page. If it still doesn't appear and you've checked your comment meets the terms of our comment policy then contact F1Fanatic with the details of your comment so we can look into it.

If you wish to complain about a comment please contact the editor directly.