Virgin: Still last in championship after 15th for Glock

2011 Italian GP team review

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Virgin were unable to capitalise on their best chance for several races to surpass HRT.

Timo GlockJerome D’Ambrosio
Qualifying position2122
Qualifying time comparison (Q1)1’27.591 (-0.018)1’27.609
Race position15
Laps51/531/53
Pit stops20

Virgin drivers’ lap times throughout the race (in seconds):

https://www.racefans.net/charts/2011drivercolours.csv

1234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303132333435363738394041424344454647484950515253
Timo Glock132.063143.1131.84895.54895.75393.56493.33593.03192.90693.49392.99792.38492.17392.50293.19593.45692.88593.38993.06696.831114.98892.76492.3294.0392.19393.22891.48691.69892.0391.41791.24891.66591.69991.59791.4491.41691.01694.146111.24391.19592.71792.72993.37593.30692.29492.83692.46491.44591.34793.21190.783
Jerome dAmbrosio
170.977

Timo Glock

Timo Glock, Virgin, Monza, 2011
Start tyreSoft
Pit stop 1Soft 25.147s
Pit stop 2Medium 22.784s

Glock had a scare in qualifying when his DRS didn’t close properly: “We had a problem with the rear wing – it just stayed open and didn’t close again.

“Then after a certain speed it just closed on its own. We have never had a problem with it before and didn’t have anything wrong yesterday, so we have to look at this and resolve it because it’s not very comfortable to experience that.

“It was very difficult and frustrating because we were very close to [Heikki] Kovalainen today and close ‘enough’ I think. With the wing working properly, who knows?”

With several cars retiring during the race, Glock had a rare chance to get Virgin ahead of HRT in in the constructors’ championship. But he finished almost 50 seconds behind Kovalainen, who occupied the precious 13th place.

Jarno Trulli made an early first pit stop and Glock might have been able to stay in front of him with a slightly earlier and quicker first pit stop. But Kovalainen never looked under threat from the Virgin.

Timo Glock 2011 form guide

Jerome d’Ambrosio

Start tyreSoft

D’Ambrosio’s car developed a gearbox glitch without warning during the formation lap: “I was really looking forward to the race and then during the formation lap I realised that I had no second gear.

“I started the race but the car was undriveable, so I had to come back into the garage and retire.”

Jerome d’Ambrosio 2011 form guide

2011 Italian Grand Prix

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    Image © Virgin Racing

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    Keith Collantine
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    9 comments on “Virgin: Still last in championship after 15th for Glock”

    1. Keith, just a quick fix on the link:

      “Virgin were unable to capitalise on a to surpass HRT.”

      Nice one!

    2. A lot of gearbox woes in Monza yesterday, wasn’t that also what did both Saubers in?

      1. It was, yep.

    3. interesting about the DRS troubles.

      i remember in the pre-season discussion I brought up a hypothetical scenario when a DRS would be “stuck” in the open position which might be dangerous. I was reassured by many that this could not happen since the default position of the DRS is closed and the air flowing over the wing would return it to the correct position if there was a failure. this was even before the season started and I was wondering how people could be so sure.

      Virgin just proved that it can happen, and that its not an obvious assumption that the wing will naturally close if a failure occurs.

      1. Indeed, and I wonder if the FIA will take a look at this because it even says in the rules the wing must go into a safe position when it fails.

      2. I must say, I am curious about what the FIA will do with this, as they and the teams really kept saying it is failsafe during pre season testing, and both its construction and the rules ensure it will be safe at all times!

        If we take in account the trouble McLaren apparently had with it not always closing (being stated as the reason for Hamilton closing it early when chasing Schu at least once during the race), it might seem there is an issue after all.

      3. But he does say it closed itself after a certain speed, I just wish he’d have hazarded a guess of what that speed might have been.

      4. I’m interested to know how much braking performance would be lost if for whatever reason the wing did not close. It shifts the balance of the car quite a bit, and as we can see from Webber. If there is no weight on the front tyres then the car won’t stop nor turn.

    4. It was interesting to see the green airflow paint on the rear of the floor on Glock’s (I think?) car on Friday afternoon. So odd to see that in the middle of the season.

      It must be pretty disheartening to not be able to take advantage of HRT’s race situation, ouch.

    Comments are closed.