Virgin had high hopes for their upgrade package in Turkey.
But they had to remove part of the new kit and a gearbox problem kept Timo Glock from racing.
| Timo Glock | Jerome d’Ambrosio | |
| Qualifying position | 21 | 24 |
| Qualifying time comparison (Q1) | 1’30.813 (+0.368) | 1’30.445 |
| Race position | 20 | |
| Laps | 0/58 | 56/58 |
| Pit stops | 2 |
Virgin drivers’ lap times throughout the race (in seconds):
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | |
| Timo Glock | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Jerome dAmbrosio | 106.951 | 99.264 | 98.38 | 97.518 | 97.364 | 97.853 | 98.381 | 98.142 | 97.585 | 97.567 | 97.566 | 97.771 | 98.532 | 99.146 | 98.529 | 99.419 | 114.593 | 95.844 | 96.06 | 96.84 | 96.228 | 96.22 | 96.082 | 96.102 | 96.948 | 98.174 | 96.763 | 96.64 | 96.897 | 97.295 | 97.326 | 97.394 | 97.536 | 118.368 | 95.61 | 95.634 | 95.422 | 95.396 | 95.821 | 98.51 | 95.215 | 95.191 | 96.6 | 95.576 | 95.454 | 95.517 | 97.288 | 95.358 | 95.735 | 95.385 | 96.641 | 95.324 | 94.979 | 95.083 | 94.971 | 95.713 |
Timo Glock
Glock was supposed to run Virgin’s full upgrade package. But the new exhaust and floor was taken off the car on Friday night due to overheating problems.
He was slowed by “engine hesitations” during qualifying and was beaten by Vitantonio Liuzzi’s HRT.
A miserable weekend ended when his car suffered a gearbox failure during his installation lap on Sunday. The team abandoned their efforts to replace the gearbox in time to get the car out for a few laps of testing.
Jerome d’Ambrosio
D’Ambrosio picked up a five-place grid penalty for failing to slow sufficiently for yellow flags during practice, meaning he started last.
He passed both the HRTs and Liuzzi’s slow pit stop left him with no-one to races as the Lotuses ahead were around a second per lap faster.
Team principal John Booth was full of praise for D’Ambrosio afterwards: “We predicted that he would have a real ‘racer’s race’ and that is exactly what we saw.
“He grabbed the opportunity with both hands, using the DRS effectively to steal a march on Karthikeyan the minute the activation period came into play, then after a 3 or 4 lap battle with Liuzzi using the DRS, Jerome’s tenacity paid off and he was able to ease away.”
Jerome d’Ambrosio 2011 form guide
2011 Turkish Grand Prix
Image © Virgin Racing
smifaye (@)
9th May 2011, 11:07
Wow – 2 stops
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
9th May 2011, 22:27
I noticed that on the stats. I think he was the only one if my memory serves me correctly.
timi (@timi)
9th May 2011, 11:43
i was aghast at jerome’s grid penalty. in FP2 i think it was (might have been FP3), it was clearly shown that button also set his fastest lap while under yellow flag conditions, thus he also failed to slow down and should have been given a grid penalty…
jerome had a good drive, but a bit overstated since the HRT’s race pace is still a ways off.
Mack41 (@mack41)
10th May 2011, 5:07
Yes but it depends if they went through the yellowed portion of the track during the hot lap. If Button had already passed that section before the yellow went out then everything thing was fine. If he passed the yellowed section like Jerome then you are right and he should have been penalized as well.
Zecks (@zecks)
9th May 2011, 13:31
A shame the upgrades were slower. I have come to realise that it isn’t a wind tunnel that virgin miss, it is an engineer thar actually understands aero. Although they are stil very slow, they seem at least to have significantly improved reliability.
US_Peter (@us_peter)
9th May 2011, 20:39
Yep. I knew they were having some fundamental issues understanding the aero when they launched their car with that low nose and every other car up to that point had a much higher nose. I’m sure they understand the aero better than I do, but even I can tell that they don’t have the grasp on it that they should. Glock has got to be kicking himself for not taking the seat at Renault that he could’ve had before Kubica signed up with them.
Eggry (@eggry)
9th May 2011, 13:43
They are simply falling apart. if they don’t do something special, HRT would hunt them. as an engineer I really enjoy their CFD-only approach but recently I enjoy watching HRT than Virgin.
Klaas
9th May 2011, 14:02
There’s time when I start to agree with Montezemolo about introducing 3 cars per team (+ getting rid of teams like Virgin and HRT). It’s sad to see talented guys guys like Glock and D’Ambrosio driving F1 cars that wouldn’t win even in GP2. The field would be more even and we would have an even bigger show.
Mike
11th May 2011, 6:40
Ever though of just watching a one make series instead?
wasiF1 (@wasif1)
9th May 2011, 16:21
Would Glock have been allowed to start the race given the fact his gear box problem was fixed lets say on lap 20?
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
9th May 2011, 16:23
I don’t think there’s a rule that would prevent that, we’ve seen similar things happen before. I think Lucas di Grassi joined in on about lap eight at one race last year.
Klaas
9th May 2011, 16:34
Haha, even if they were allowed I don’t think Timo would be very happy about it. He said that he would rather stay in the garage and have a coffee than drive that piece of *****. In the last interview the guy was very frustrated and I’m 99% sure he won’t be with Virgin next season.
US_Peter (@us_peter)
9th May 2011, 20:44
The problem would’ve been if they’d started him so late that he wasn’t able to complete enough of the race distance to still be classified. On SPEED they were saying shortly before the race that the team had done some calculations and they figured that if they could get him out within 8 minutes of the start of the race, then he’d still be able to be classified…
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
9th May 2011, 22:29
Well it might give them that ‘wind tunnel’ time they need!
Another rookie driver would have loved the chance.
wasiF1 (@wasif1)
10th May 2011, 2:58
I think you need to finish 75% race distance to be classified.
Mr draw
10th May 2011, 23:23
No, 90 %.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
9th May 2011, 22:30
I think D’Ambrosio had a good weekend.