Virgin MVR-02 Cosworth

[Florio]

So Virgin is expected to take 'a very big step forward' according to Wirth, having doubled their CFD facilities.

At the moment, this is one of the only reports I could find relating to the car, anymore you may find post and i'll put on here.[ [b]Autosport Interview[/b] [url]http: ... p/id/88896

No KERS for Hispania or Virgin
http://www.planetf1.com/news/18227/6605 ... n-Hispania

[raymondu999]

I wonder if their reliability will improve. CFD doesn't do much in terms of testing structural strength and reliability

[Florio]

I wonder if their reliability will improve. CFD doesn't do much in terms of testing structural strength and reliability

Alot of their reliability woes was due to the Xtrac systems, something they said they've invested time and money to improve.

[ESPImperium]

Im expecting Virgin to make a leap right to the middle of the Lotus Racing-STR gap, whitch was about a second at the end of the season, so the VR/02 will be about half a sesond off the pace initially in testing, but by the time we get to Barcelona id expect them to be right on the money dicing with the STR/Team Lotus/Force India battle in the mid feild.

That is if they have a car that has good relyability and such. Im sure that Embedded Xtrac engineers will help them more, as thats what Xtraxc are offering this year top Virgin, 7 staff at each GP to monitor the hydrolics data and mechanichal side of things as well.

Im not really expecting a storming season, but a good one for the groundwork for the VR/03 car.

[wesley123]

Well I expect them to really make a big leap forward, more than Team Lotus. I do this based on what we saw in LMP, the Acura debut year was miserable, the second year they won the championship with an pretty much reworked car.

I personally think CFD is an really powerfull tool, but it needs much more time to be understood than an windtunnel.

[Florio]

Well I expect them to really make a big leap forward, more than Team Lotus. I do this based on what we saw in LMP, the Acura debut year was miserable, the second year they won the championship with an pretty much reworked car.

I personally think CFD is an really powerfull tool, but it needs much more time to be understood than an windtunnel.

Of course, like you've mentioned CFD has it's drawbacks with regarding to time. However Wirth's team is talented and have shown before what their capable of (like you've mentioned above). In my opinion the doubling in resources should counter considerably the disadvantage they had last season regarding updates.

Hope they know what fuel density they're running this year

[Pandamasque]

The facilities were probably upgraded primarily due to the collaboration with Honda, rather than with Marussia
Let's not forget that Virgin would be nothing more than a re-branded Manor F3 team without Wirth Research.

[marcush.]

the step will be considerable methinks.Realistically they should be behind Team Lotus still and catching Toro Rosso will be more a matter of how good Ascanellis troups are working and if Buemi and Alguesuari are able to up their game to the level needed.It is a hard world.
Wirths lack of expertise in the area of hydraulics was obvious from day one in F1
As I understand todays lmp cars are using mainly pneumatic gearshifts and Epas steering systems ..so they really had no activities in that area before joining F1
apart from old experience(mind you Wirth was TD at Bennetton after simtek went bellyup).
So the mess was really created between Cosworth and Xtrac but catapulted Virgin back into the 80s stoneage in terms of reliability and limited mileage for a long time.
Surprising to me just how long it took them to get on top of the hydraulics.Were they even working on it or was this a X-trac only development area?

[ESPImperium]

Remember Virgin designed and manufacurerd their own Aluminium/Titanium Composite gear box casing with the Xtrac internals and hydrolic pack. From what ive heard they have hired engineers that used to be at Toyota to handle all their in house stuff, but they will be working with the embedded Xtrac staff that Xtrac will have at Virgin this year seemingly. Last year Xtrac saw Virgin ask for help when they needed it, Lotus managed the whole thing inhouse and Hispania had embedded employees of Xtrac in the team. Id recon that Xtrac will embed staff in Virgin to protect their product and more or less run it. Look at Hispania, with full Xtrac suppoer they had the most relyable car of the new teams in 2010.

Id recon that Virgin will have made a leap in the hydrolic area of the package, but i also think they will have mad a significant jump overall from 2010 seasons end.

[czt]

the step will be considerable methinks.Realistically they should be behind Team Lotus still and catching Toro Rosso will be more a matter of how good Ascanellis troups are working and if Buemi and Alguesuari are able to up their game to the level needed.It is a hard world.
Wirths lack of expertise in the area of hydraulics was obvious from day one in F1
As I understand todays lmp cars are using mainly pneumatic gearshifts and Epas steering systems ..so they really had no activities in that area before joining F1
apart from old experience(mind you Wirth was TD at Bennetton after simtek went bellyup).
So the mess was really created between Cosworth and Xtrac but catapulted Virgin back into the 80s stoneage in terms of reliability and limited mileage for a long time.
Surprising to me just how long it took them to get on top of the hydraulics.Were they even working on it or was this a X-trac only development area?

Wirth (and the other new teams) didn't really need knowledge of hydraulics as the system was supplied by xtrac. Unfortunately, it didn't work very well which left the teams scrambling to find hydraulics engineers!

I'm sure reliability will be far better next season as the teams have either brought some knowledge in house, or tapped into other teams experience (like Lotus)

[marcush.]

going for a co-design was always going to be considered as a high risk .telling xtrac you are not happy with their casing design is the first wedge you are going to drive between the engneers of Xtrac and wirth...and to have limited knowledge about the system you have to integrate is always going to spring up surprises..
unfortunatelly too late for Wirths boys.clearly they underestimated some tasks by a long shot ...or had to cut too many corners due to lack of recources (time and workforce)just to make it to the grid.
Considering their expert knowledge about project management (at least thats what they are advertising big time on their web presence) it takes me by surprise how they missed the boat on so many items in the ramp up to the 2010 season...
Of course they will now look more closely to exactly their problem points but who sais they did not hit the nail on the correct side simply by chance or did not discover alot of shortcomings of their 2010 contender due to the limited running they did...It´s a long and steep hill for them and tbh I´m rather disappointed with them .Timo Glock needs a lot of stamina and needs to keep up his heel biting attitude ,keep them pushing as he did.

[marcush.]

read again this interview with Nick Wirth about the start of the 2o10 season and how he admits to having not realised just how much Honda contributed to their
Process in the background supplying reliability of an engine , gearbox and systems.
http://www.racecar-engineering.com/news ... h-q-a.html

what is very striking in this:

He sais ...the work on the hydraulics side has set them back in developing the aero and getting upgrades on stream ...
why would this be the case? technically I see not much reason for it.Your CFD guys could maybe do some simulation on hydraulic fluid flows but they would surely not be the ones to designnew plumbing or whatever to make the system work.

Maybe the actual CAD drawing is affected by what is going on and maybe that´s the bottleneck

But really the Tub carrying a bigger fuelcapacity was the stumbling stone to their aero programm .having to do it all new ....all molds and parts ...

brings me to the question what they did with those three tubs and the old bodywork..maybe there was another chance to buy contemporary F1 stuff not worth much but perfectly suited for someone just out to have some expensive fun...

[PlatinumZealot]

Remember they didn't have to change the whole chassis tub. All they did was extend the back part of the chassis and extend floor and the engine cover a couple centimeters. You know which part of the chassis i mean right?

I think Wirth cannot be the one to blame for the unreliable gearbox. During the season we saw X-track boxes blowing up right left and center. Lotus, HRT and Virgin. the whole shebang.

[marcush.]

He admits to having misjudged the gearbox situation ..as can be seen in tzhe racecar -engineering piece as well as in the James allen blog:
"He claims that the Virgin F1 car track data is closer in reality to the CFD numbers than any car he’s built before.

The Virgin car is around 4 seconds off the pace of the front running cars at this stage. In his view, the car lacks aerodynamic refinement compared to the Ferraris and McLarens because it is the first product from the design team, “We just lack experience compared to the fantastically clever people out there” – not because of the limitations of the CFD process. And just as the team at Force India has designed a much more aero efficient car with each passing year, so will Wirth’s designers. They have an aggressive development programme for this season so it will be interesting to see how far they are off the pace at the end of the season.

The design of the monocoque was frozen in June last year, probably three months earlier than the top teams who have greater resources and experience in manufacture. The team has a strict budget of €45 million all in and so far has hit all the deadlines it set itself. It will travel to Bahrain with two cars and a spare monocoque as well as five sets of spares for most parts. Wirth says that the troublesome differential, which has been causing the hydraulic leaks and destroyed their Barcelona test, has been fixed. There were quality control problems causing it to crack. But new spec ones are in short supply, so the drivers had better not crash into the barriers backwards before the race.."

And as for the simply had to elongate the rear of the tub thing...the cost for this modification was a reported 1mill€ ..sources differ if they really did bond
a structure to the existing tub or made new ones.anyways everyting needed rework in terms of bodywork ....

[forty-two]

On the matter of the fuel tank, I seem to remember last season, quite early on, seeing a representative of Virgin Racing (no, I can't remember who) on the BBC coverage saying that they'd been promised a higher density fuel and that was the reason for the "miscalculation".

Surely, if THEY were expecting a higher density fuel, then so would everyone else?

Was this PR BS, or do people think that this story is true?