Virgin were unable to capitalise on their best chance for several races to surpass HRT.
| Timo Glock | Jerome D’Ambrosio | |
| Qualifying position | 21 | 22 |
| Qualifying time comparison (Q1) | 1’27.591 (-0.018) | 1’27.609 |
| Race position | 15 | |
| Laps | 51/53 | 1/53 |
| Pit stops | 2 | 0 |
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 | |
| Timo Glock | 132.063 | 143.1 | 131.848 | 95.548 | 95.753 | 93.564 | 93.335 | 93.031 | 92.906 | 93.493 | 92.997 | 92.384 | 92.173 | 92.502 | 93.195 | 93.456 | 92.885 | 93.389 | 93.066 | 96.831 | 114.988 | 92.764 | 92.32 | 94.03 | 92.193 | 93.228 | 91.486 | 91.698 | 92.03 | 91.417 | 91.248 | 91.665 | 91.699 | 91.597 | 91.44 | 91.416 | 91.016 | 94.146 | 111.243 | 91.195 | 92.717 | 92.729 | 93.375 | 93.306 | 92.294 | 92.836 | 92.464 | 91.445 | 91.347 | 93.211 | 90.783 | ||
| Jerome dAmbrosio | 170.977 |
Timo Glock
| Start tyre | Soft |
| Pit stop 1 | Soft 25.147s |
| Pit stop 2 | Medium 22.784s |
Glock had a scare in qualifying when his DRS didn’t close properly: “We had a problem with the rear wing ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ it just stayed open and didn?óÔé¼Ôäót close again.
“Then after a certain speed it just closed on its own. We have never had a problem with it before and didn?óÔé¼Ôäót have anything wrong yesterday, so we have to look at this and resolve it because it?óÔé¼Ôäós not very comfortable to experience that.
“It was very difficult and frustrating because we were very close to [Heikki] Kovalainen today and close ‘enough’ I think. With the wing working properly, who knows?”
With several cars retiring during the race, Glock had a rare chance to get Virgin ahead of HRT in in the constructors’ championship. But he finished almost 50 seconds behind Kovalainen, who occupied the precious 13th place.
Jarno Trulli made an early first pit stop and Glock might have been able to stay in front of him with a slightly earlier and quicker first pit stop. But Kovalainen never looked under threat from the Virgin.
Jerome d’Ambrosio
| Start tyre | Soft |
D’Ambrosio’s car developed a gearbox glitch without warning during the formation lap: “I was really looking forward to the race and then during the formation lap I realised that I had no second gear.
“I started the race but the car was undriveable, so I had to come back into the garage and retire.”
Jerome d’Ambrosio 2011 form guide
2011 Italian Grand Prix
Image ?é?® Virgin Racing
Dan Selby
12th September 2011, 10:25
Keith, just a quick fix on the link:
“Virgin were unable to capitalise on a to surpass HRT.”
Nice one!
BasCB (@bascb)
12th September 2011, 11:00
A lot of gearbox woes in Monza yesterday, wasn’t that also what did both Saubers in?
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
14th September 2011, 13:49
It was, yep.
vjanik
12th September 2011, 12:48
interesting about the DRS troubles.
i remember in the pre-season discussion I brought up a hypothetical scenario when a DRS would be “stuck” in the open position which might be dangerous. I was reassured by many that this could not happen since the default position of the DRS is closed and the air flowing over the wing would return it to the correct position if there was a failure. this was even before the season started and I was wondering how people could be so sure.
Virgin just proved that it can happen, and that its not an obvious assumption that the wing will naturally close if a failure occurs.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
12th September 2011, 12:52
Indeed, and I wonder if the FIA will take a look at this because it even says in the rules the wing must go into a safe position when it fails.
BasCB (@bascb)
12th September 2011, 14:10
I must say, I am curious about what the FIA will do with this, as they and the teams really kept saying it is failsafe during pre season testing, and both its construction and the rules ensure it will be safe at all times!
If we take in account the trouble McLaren apparently had with it not always closing (being stated as the reason for Hamilton closing it early when chasing Schu at least once during the race), it might seem there is an issue after all.
Mike
12th September 2011, 14:57
But he does say it closed itself after a certain speed, I just wish he’d have hazarded a guess of what that speed might have been.
Tyson Evans (@bobtehblob)
13th September 2011, 11:04
I’m interested to know how much braking performance would be lost if for whatever reason the wing did not close. It shifts the balance of the car quite a bit, and as we can see from Webber. If there is no weight on the front tyres then the car won’t stop nor turn.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
14th September 2011, 13:51
It was interesting to see the green airflow paint on the rear of the floor on Glock’s (I think?) car on Friday afternoon. So odd to see that in the middle of the season.
It must be pretty disheartening to not be able to take advantage of HRT’s race situation, ouch.