Virgin Racing: The merits of CFD

Five point one seconds. That was the margin by which the faster of the two Virgin drivers, Timo Glock, was off the pace in the first qualifying session of the 2010 season in Bahrain. It also made Glock the quickest of the six drivers in the three new teams. In the most recent race at Monza, Glock was only 3.5 seconds behind the best time posted in Q1. The comparison is obviously somewhat suspect because of the very different characteristics of the two circuits, but one thing is clear all the same: Virgin Racing have got better as the year has gone on.

Which means that Technical Director Nick Wirth has at least achieved one of his ambitions for this season – to convince the world of Formula One that, even in the top flight of motorsport, it is possible to develop a racing car exclusively by means of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). But Wirth still has his most difficult challenge ahead of him: he has to prove that he can use CFD to build an F1 car that can not only mix it with the other new teams but also compete with the established outfits.