mclaren and virgin announce link up deal

Virgin Racing and McLaren have agreed a technical partnership with immediate effect aimed at helping the fledging Virgin team move up the grid.

Virgin will have access to McLaren's facilities including their driver simulator, test rigs and wind tunnel.

The deal will mean members of McLaren's team are embedded within Virgin.

Virgin Racing also confirmed they have bought the Formula 1 wing of their former technical director Nick Wirth's company Wirth Research Technologies.

Russian sportscar maker Marussia Motors, which bought a controlling interest in the team late last year, and the board decided to cut ties with Wirth in June after a disappointing start to their second season in F1.

Wirth had pioneered the use of computer technology, known as computational fluid dynamics (CFD), to design and develop the car but the new technical agreement with McLaren represents a shift in priorities.

Former Renault engineering director Pat Symonds, who was suspended from F1 for his part in the 2008 race-fixing controversy, has been acting as a consultant for Virgin since February and will now play a major part in forging the team's technical direction.

"Our bold ambitions for the future would need to be matched with some equally bold steps towards achieving them," said Virgin Racing chief executive Andy Webb.

"We can benefit enormously from McLaren's far-reaching techniques and capabilities and I have no doubt that this partnership will see us take the technical steps necessary to make a necessary leap forwards."

McLaren entered a similar arrangement with Force India in 2008 and elements of that agreement, which also sees Force India use the same Mercedes engines and gearbox technology, was recently extended.

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh commented on the new arrangement with Virgin: "These properties are state-of-the-art, and we confidently therefore expect Virgin Racing to derive significant benefits from it.

"We recognise that Andy Webb and his team was extremely positive and very serious about making developments that will lift the competitiveness of their cars over the coming years."

Virgin confirmed that they will continue to use Cosworth engines.

The team are bottom of the standings at the halfway point of the 2011 season with neither Timo Glock or Jerome D'Ambrosio able to score a point.

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/formula_one/14013831.stm

Thats good, Mclaren can definately help Virgin develop their car further, even if its only giving them acess to their facilities.

What benefit do McLaren get from this? There's no such thing as freebies in this sport. Good for Virgin though, they've got a very experienced team on their side.

TSC wrote:What benefit do McLaren get from this? There's no such thing as freebies in this sport. Good for Virgin though, they've got a very experienced team on their side.

somewhere to raise drivers through the ranks ?

Just what I was thinking fernando.

I'd expect Virgin to make some progress up the grid, but I'm guessing McLaren have spotted a chance to get a feeder team of their own, given the links between Red Bull and Toro Rosso, Ferrari and Sauber.

Expect to see Glock and D'Ambrosio replaced within the next couple of years by drivers in McLaren's development programme. Who knows - that might help them even more.

Still going to be held back until they get a decent engine though.

it's a very wise move by mclaren although i do think d'ambrosio is a quite a talent consistently getting the better of glock who is a very good driver in his own right.

maybe paffett or turvey will finally get a drive

Feeder teams are good, gives the rookies a chance to tune their skills before movign the big teams. BUT...

It annoys me when the commentators say something like (and it usually is the RB and STR) will the "Torro Rosso move over for the RB" WHY!? i dont care how much RB owns of STR and i dont care about the sponsors, other teams should not be letting other cars through and blocking others, if they're racing for position.

in fact all teams should be treated individually. Not a problem for RB to fund STR team to allow it to operate as a feeder team, this however shouldnt extend to the race track give teams advantages/disadvantages