Mid-season review: Virgin Racing

Wings falling off, too small a fuel tank and a largely unhappy driver line-up has been the story of the year so far for Virgin, after joining the sport this year having taken over the Manor Motorsport guise. Despite being the first to have had their entry confirmed in June, they have underperformed massively compared to main rivals Lotus Racing who only got their entry confirmed three months' later.

Relibility problems in testing meant the VR-01 car got less than 1,800 km of running, 1,000 km less than Lotus who started testing a week later. Along with hydraulic problems, the team also had a front wing failure which compromised their pre-season preparations. Then at the start of the season, news broke that the car's fuel tank was not big enough to let the drivers finish the race on full power, meaning Glock and Di Grassi would have to conserve fuel massively from the off.

Having installed a bigger fuel tank, and brought a major aerodynamic upgrade to the British Grand Prix, Virgin remain consistently behind Lotus, and in Hungary finished some 27 seconds adrift. While reliability has improved considerably, speed remains a problem. While their innovative CFD-only approach may be working wonders on the balance sheet, it may be time for them to reconsider.