Virgin pretty much admit they were wrong.

Flibster · 1 Jun 2011 at 22:36

Virgin split with their design team Wirth Research.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/91924

After all the 'CFD only is the future' rubbish, they have finally decided that it doesn't work.

The last line says it all.

"Naturally, we will continue to use every means at our disposal to improve the aerodynamics of our car with immediate effect."

[edit]
Although, isn't Pat Symonds banned from F1 at the moment?

ng93 · 1 Jun 2011 at 23:25

I have no doubt that CFD is the future, it's just not ready yet so needs wind tunnels and real life testing to back it up.

pingwing · 2 Jun 2011 at 00:34

Wonder who in the team noticed first...

The car has been pretty woeful too, only the underfunded HRT has been worse, and that has even made both cars to the end of some events.

Some wind tunnel work and some serious investment are the only way to save Glocks career (and his one fan's faith in f1, my mate who likes him because hes got a name like a gun)

Moley · 3 Jun 2011 at 10:29

Having spent time last year with Virgin Racing and this year with Wirth research (I've seen the full CFD setup they have - it's amazing) I have to say that in reality this is likely to be a case of their new major sponsor Marussia (a super car manufacturer) angling to take control of the technical side of the team, rather than Wirth performing particularly poorly. Up until last week the Dinnington factory of Virgin was going to be closed and all staff/resources merged with the Wirth factory in Banbury.

CFD is fantastic for developing a car from scratch without the incredibly expensive wind tunnel facilities but in my opinion is about 10 years worth of data short of being able to completely replace tunnels. Wirth and Virgin are simply too far ahead of the game here and Marussia aren't prepared to wait for success to come - they have a stated aim of being on the podium for the first Russian GP in 2015.

Wirth have had incredible success in other motor sports classes - especially Le Mans and American Le Mans - take a look at their website here for more info: http://www.wirthresearch.com/about

Clearly CFD can produce the goods - but I seriously think that F1 car are SO dependent on tiny aero differences that the data to do the goods in F1 just hasn't been gathered yet. Like I said if the teams stick with it CFD will likely be much better in 10 years time.

Duke · 3 Jun 2011 at 10:59

Will be interesting to see how Pat Symonds gets on. Quite good that the small teams are able to get experienced staff in - HRT with Geoff Willis, Team Lotus with Mike Gascoyne.

Alibaba99 · 3 Jun 2011 at 20:10

Moley said:
Having spent time last year with Virgin Racing and this year with Wirth research (I've seen the full CFD setup they have - it's amazing) I have to say that in reality this is likely to be a case of their new major sponsor Marussia (a super car manufacturer) angling to take control of the technical side of the team, rather than Wirth performing particularly poorly. Up until last week the Dinnington factory of Virgin was going to be closed and all staff/resources merged with the Wirth factory in Banbury.

CFD is fantastic for developing a car from scratch without the incredibly expensive wind tunnel facilities but in my opinion is about 10 years worth of data short of being able to completely replace tunnels. Wirth and Virgin are simply too far ahead of the game here and Marussia aren't prepared to wait for success to come - they have a stated aim of being on the podium for the first Russian GP in 2015.

Wirth have had incredible success in other motor sports classes - especially Le Mans and American Le Mans - take a look at their website here for more info: http://www.wirthresearch.com/about

Clearly CFD can produce the goods - but I seriously think that F1 car are SO dependent on tiny aero differences that the data to do the goods in F1 just hasn't been gathered yet. Like I said if the teams stick with it CFD will likely be much better in 10 years time.

The trouble is the larger teams also make extensive use of CFD plus wind tunnel work and have years of historical data to back things up with.

They are always going to be ahead of the game compared to a new CFD only team unless that teams CFD is an order or two of magnitude better than the others, which would be doubtful.