Virgin Racing’s chief executive Graham Lowdon believes his team are the future of Formula One with their pioneering Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approach to development.
Whilst the process failed to deliver impressive results in 2010, with the team finishing last in the championship thanks to poor reliability, they are confident they’ve learnt from last year and will make a ‘very big step forward’ in 2011.
“Last year was about getting the team established after having had such a short time to put it in place, but now we’re really excited about 2011,” said Lowdon.
“As you know we’ve followed a different path to the traditional teams where we’ve used new technology and developed processes Nick has pioneered, so we’re excited about moving into 2011.
“We believe we’re the future of Formula One. We’re up for a challenge, and we’re keen to challenge the establishment.”
This comes after an announcement on Thursday that the team and their partner, CSC, had doubled their computing power, allowing them to maximise the use of CFD.
“The new car is a very big step forward from the 2010 car, so we’re very excited about putting that on track,” he explained. “We’ve tried to learn the lessons throughout the project, in terms of all the bits and pieces, to try and bring it all together and make a great step forward in 2011.
“I think it’s going to be a very interesting season as we’ve new rules, new tyres, and with this moveable rear wing, no one really has a clue as to how it’s going to work in terms of the effect on racing.
“So there are a huge range of things that could make 2011 as exciting as 2010 was for the public.”
