The Hot Rod or Hot Dog mid-season review - Virgin
- Published on Aug 18th, 2011 by Craig NormansellVirgin Racing
- Best Result: 14th (Jerome D'Ambrosio, Australia, Turkey)
- Points scored: 0
- Championship position: 12th (that's last)
Virgin's difficult second album began in earnest, with plenty of hard graft, but the Sheffield based team can't quite get all the pieces working together. While Team Lotus, with big financial backing, and HRT, with a little bit of luck and perseverance, are further up the grid, it's all through traditional means like wind tunnels. Virgin stuck by their CFD guns, and it was showing. With disappointing results, and the gap to Green Lotus ever widening, Wirth Research was shown the door and a technical tie-up with McLaren announced. Pat Symonds was hired as a technical consultant too, but he can't touch anything until the "Crashgate" ban expires next season. Plans are in place to improve, but try as they might, it's all about 2012 for the team.
All in all, a trying season so far for Virgin - fast enough to challenge Team Lotus on a single lap, but still level with HRT in terms of race pace. Verdict - must try harder.
Status: Sleeping Dog
It's tough at the back for both Timo Glock and Jerome D'Ambrosio. One is a veteran of 60-odd Grand Prix, while the other is a green-as-you-like rookie, but it's hard to tell the difference. While Glock can mix it with the Lotuses from time to time but can't catch a break, it's Jerome who is slower but brings the car home on a more regular basis. Glock even missed two round thanks to car problems in Melbourne and Istanbul, while his Belgian team-mate missed the 107% cut in Canada but was allowed to compete.
It's a hard choice, but the experienced German nicks it because you know, when the chips are down, the Glock-Dog would be the man to pull off a miracle. And even though the ink's drying on a new contract, you wonder how long he's going to want to keep trying.
Badger's Best: Timo Glock
Comments and Discussion
I always think it's a shame we only really see the leaders in any race unless someone has an accident. I find there are often three or four groups of drivers in any race each having their own drama.
Generally there are the first 5-6 cars all hoping for the podium and it's generally split between the Red Bulls, McLaren and the Ferraris. This seems to be all the camera really shows which is a nice as they're arguably the best driver+car combinations.
However there is also the middle group/groups depending on how you look at it. Often from 7th to maybe 14th is an almost entirely separate race. Good drivers in good cars all trying to get into the points but with little real hope of a podium finish. It's generally the Mercedes, Saubers, Williams etc. There are some excellent drivers here and the actions should be a lot more exciting as the driver+car combinations aren't quite as good they're a little less balanced and consequently mistakes are made and daring overtaking and more adventurous driving can and does take place.
It's entirely possible for a driver in the lead to disappear into the distance *cough*Vettel*cough* but this can't happen in the middle because where would they go? There's also the fact that some cars in the middle section are surprisingly good in some areas of performance whilst being weak in others. We've seen a couple of occasions where someone in a faster all-round car gets stuck behind a Merc' and is unable to get past because they seem to be excellent at accelerating away from corners. Saubers meanwhile seem to be able to make their tires last and last. Neither trait is quite enough to win races, but it means that you have a more interesting race.
You get the feeling that the potential podium finishers cars are very closely matched a lot of the time and are well rounded to boot. You rarely see one team with a significant advantage other the others, in fact a lot of people speculated that the recent exhaust changes to favour Ferrari (until now arguably the weakest of the three) could be a trick to spice things up a little. Red bull are looking like a safe bet to win, but now there's a chance Ferrari and sometimes McLaren can snatch it away from them making for a more varied and interesting race.
Lastly we get to the back of the pack. The Virgins the HRTs the Lotus'. Cars that are often in development and rarely if ever score points. They break down a lot and are generally the first to crash. Not good for the sport but always entertaining to watch (not that I want drivers to crash exactly, but I always get excited where I hear it's going to be a wet or changeable race. Because it's like playing cards with the knowledge there will be a couple of jokers in the pack and that jokers are wild. Everything's a little bit more fun). These cars aren't great and the drivers are either rookies or more experienced drivers that never really made it to the podium. We rarely see them except for when they're being lapped and when that happens, generally quite late into the race they're almost always grouped together in a line of 5 or 6 cars nose to gearbox and occasionally too distracted to notice the leaders until the blue flags come out.
I would argue that the second and third groups of drivers are far more interesting to watch than those that might win. There's nothing less interesting that watching a car win from pole position. We all love to see drivers taking risks and overtaking. Just look at the popularity of drivers like Hamilton and Kobayashi. I for one would love at times to be able to watch the race again but this time following the battle for 10th position or the battle for 16th.
I would say that the leaders are too good, it's not entertaining to watch an excellent driver in an excellent car do excellent things excellently. It's far more fun to watch a good driver in a less balanced and well-rounded car drive less-certainly. For this I will always be a fan of the less perfect drivers and their less perfect cars because when I watch a race I care about who comes 10th a lot more than who comes first.