Virgin Racing 2011 Car Launched

With limited knowledge of how the cars surfaces have been designed and how the airflow / downforce is going to work you can't possibly comment on if the car looks fast or not, all you've done is seen it's a Virgin car and gone omg its going to be slow, and posted a Reb Bull & McLaren because we know its going to be near or damn it a front runner.

Care to expand on a technical level why you think the car looks slow and which features of the other two make it look quicker.
 
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Firestar_3x said:
With limited knowledge of how the cars surfaces have been designed and how the airflow / downforce is going to work you can't possibly comment on if the car looks fast or not, all you've done is seen it's a Virgin car and gone omg its going to be slow, and posted a Reb Bull & McLaren because we know its going to be near or damn it a front runner.
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If you look at front running cars, you'll notice lots of little design features that distinguish them from the other cars and appear to be in place to improve the speed of the car. They're often not pretty (think of those mid-wings the cars were sporting a few years back) but they're placed there because the designers have figured out a way to get extra performance from them. Look at the tailend cars and they lack the complex elements (such as wing end plates), and carefully crafted body panels of the higher teams.

That's why I say it doesn't look like a fast car. I'm not claiming special technical knowledge here.
 
Duke said:
The fact it still looks like the 2010 GP2 car they used last year is also a good basis for knowing the speed.
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Thank god someone else has noticed it hasnt really changed from last years car! They've done the normal tighten up the rear as everyone else has and changed the nose.....

It'll be another year of running at the back for Timo
 
Duke said:
The fact it still looks like the 2010 GP2 car they used last year is also a good basis for knowing the speed.
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Apart from the nose of the car it does look almost identical to last years contender. Still best wait until it has hit the track because underneath they may have taken a bigger step forward than it looks like.


Last years car
 
It's worrying that the nose changes don't seem to be in-line with the other teams developments. Utilising as high a nose as possible is order of the day.
 
Looking back at last years car the front wing doesn't seem any different to me, barring the winglets on the main plane - which they had at the end of last year anyway.

The differences I can see are that the sidepod inlets for the radiators have been raised - although they're still the same shape, and the sidepods have been profiled and undercut to get more airflow around to the back of the car.

Doesn't add up to much to me.
 
I managed to get a fan pass for the launch yesterday and during the Q+A the main focus seems to have been making improvements to last years car and closing the gap. They sounded pretty confident of getting up to mid-table but we'll have to see how it runs in testing. I agree with a lot of the comments above, I don't think this is going to be enough at all. It's a thing of beauty though up close :D

20110208-pwmyn44qm8x38btj3ej4j19pgb.jpg
 
Spunkey said:
They did have them last year. They appeared on the car after 5 races or so: http://assets.virginracing.com/cdn/media/image/24aed452.jpeg

Anyway, point remains, this isn't even going to be even close to enough of an overhaul of the car to close the gap.
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I stand corrected then, I just compared the two pictures I had avaliable, and the front wings there, were different.. but you are right, they'll still be spending the race looking at everyone elses exhausts
 
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