F1 Fanatic

I think Lotus will take a win and championship loooooooooooooong before Virgin. Lotus have now left Virgin to fend off HRT, and HRT are proving to be up for the fight.

Sir Richard Branson will only throw money at this for so long before he throws in the towel… they must get results and they must prove progress like every other team on the grid… as EJ says this first year is about Survival. F1 is a cut throat business, and I don’t see that being any different for Virgin.

Don’t forget that Sir RB is on the promise of a Hostess’s uniform should the team fail to better Lotus by year end… and we know how much Sir Richard likes to dress as a lady :-) Let’s see how he swings…

Before I start I should confess that I have a split allegiance; McLaren at the front of the grid and Virgin at the back.

I don’t think the difference between Lotus and Virgin is that big now (understanding that the above was posted a month ago). I was at Silverstone last week and the Lotus and Virgin cars were going round virtually locked together.

Virgin’s current challenges are obviously around reliability which has to be hindering development.

A variable that will be thrown into the mix during the second half of the season is the development of the car. I assume Lotus have a single wind tunnel, and they’ll have to take the model of the current car out to allow them to work on the 2011 car. As VR use CFD only they won’t have that problem – they should be able to develop both the 2010 and 2011 cars in parallel.

As a 52 year old guy (Gold Leaf Lotus, Graham Hill and all that), of course I have a fondness for Lotus and I hope they succeed too, but as a IT professional I’m hoping that CFD is able to produce some serious results.

They are doing quite well considering they applied to race under the budget cap rules.

I do think Lotus will beat them for tenth place in the championship though.

I think Virgin are doing quite well inspite of their setbacks – and I’m not saying that because of my aavatar. Although Timo Glock was officially classified as two laps down in Great Britain and the Lotuses were only one down, he was within sight of them at the finish line. Mark Webber got him on the last lap, but didn’t catch the Lotuses. Lotus might have the upper hand over one lap, but when Virgin get things right, they do quite well for themselves. They’ve caught up the gap to Lotus faster than Lotus caught up to the established teams.

Got to support Virgin as the only proper British team of the new entrants and therefore only one of three British teams in F1!