Virgin fail to make their fuel tank large enough to last the race distance
Virgin seem to have managed to build themselves a car that doesn’t actually have a big enough fuel tank to last the race distance. That finishes off their chance of completing the next few races then, with them unable to get a new design together and built before the Spanish GP that means that something has to give at the next three races – will they run at half pace for some laps or will they just see how far they get?
It seems strange that they have managed to design themselves into this position, the refueling rules were the big change this year and all the other teams have managed it. It seems that they will have to cut the back off of their chassis and bond a new longer section to the back so that they can add the capacity to the fuel tank. Their application to the FIA to re-approve a new chassis design has been granted so they can make the changes they need though they’ll have to pass the crash tests again.
They say that the tank is marginal and that it’s size is a function of several factors that have changed since the design but why design your car that close to the limit? It seems that having some extra capacity might be good if halfway through the season you found a way to increase BHP at the expense of fuel consumption, a few extra litres might help. Someone will have to face the music on that one – that’s a lot of time and money to waste for a small team not to mention the cost of re-doing the areodynamics. Wirth Research have got a few busy weeks ahead.
It seems that Virgin may have just bought themselves the time to fix their reliability issues by virtue of knowing they can’t finish. It gives them 3 weekends of extended testing – though I doubt that is what they intended when they set out last year. In short it’s a major mistake and they it will take them some time to recover the costs and effort needed to overcome it – it’s a shame as they have been showing some promise.
Popularity: 7%
