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Virgin, like Coca-Cola and McDonald's, is one of those iconic brands that F1 has been seeking to bring on board for as long as one can remember. Finally, in 2009, having been linked with a possible buy-out of the Honda team over the winter, Richard Branson tested the waters by entering into a sponsorship deal with the newly created Brawn GP team.
Although Brawn went on to win both titles, by mid-season it was clear that Virgin was looking elsewhere finally reaching an agreement with Manor Grand Prix which had secured one of three new slots on the 2010 grid.
Manor Grand Prix is the result of a 'marriage' between Manor Motorsport, a British outfit founded by John Booth in 1990, and Wirth Research, the company headed by Nick Wirth former aerodynamicist for March Engineering, founder of the Simtek F1 team and consultant to the FIA.
The youngest-ever Fellow of the Royal Institute of Mechanical Engineers, Wirth is widely regarded as genius. Almost entirely responsible for the beautiful 1989 Leyton House March - the chief designer was Adrian Newey - Wirth also conceived and designed the car's active suspension system.
After March he co-founded Simtek Research with Max Mosley, the aim of the company being to provide top class design, development and research at a realistic price. The company designed an F1 car for BMW in 1990 but the German manufacturer decided to abort the project. Wirth subsequently updated the design and sold it to Andrea Moda for use in the 19992 season.
In 1993, with Mosley having sold his shares in the company following his election as FIA president, Wirth took the decision to build his own car for the 2004 season. With MTV Europe as title sponsor and three-time world champion Jack Brabham a shareholder, Simtek lined up on the grid in Brazil with a total workforce of less than 40.
Its active suspension banned, a manual gearbox, the under-powered Ford HB and a design that was considered cumbersome saw the team struggle, with David Brabham qualifying 26th (and last) for the season opener and teammate Roland Ratzenberger failing to qualify. That said, in the race Brabham brought his car home in twelfth.
There was a slight improvement in the next couple of races, indeed, Ratzenberger finished eleventh in the Pacific GP. However, the dream was to end a few weeks later when the popular Austrian was killed during qualifying for the San Marino GP.
While the sport was coming to terms with the loss of Ratzenberger - the first death during a GP weekend since Riccardo Paletti in Canada 1982 - F1 suffered another dreadful blow the following day when three-time champion Ayrton Senna perished in an accident that still remains unexplained.
The team soldiered on for the rest of the season and even into 1995, but with serious money problems - £6m in debt!!! - and an eleventh-hour pullout down by a potential backer, Wirth finally pulled the plug after the Monaco GP. With the team unable to find a buyer, 48 jobs were lost and its assets were sold at auction.
Between 1996 and 1999, Wirth was chief designer at Benetton, the Englishman taking over from Rory Byrne who had headed to Ferrari with Michael Schumacher and Ross Brawn. After a period as a board member at Benetton Wirth left to form RoboScience a company which was to go on to build a robotic dog.
In 2006, Wirth began work as a consultant to the FIA the Englishman working on the split rear wing concept that the governing body intended introducing in 2008. He subsequently became involved with the Acura LMP programme in the American Le Mans Series concentrating on the new LMP1 class car for the 2009 season. The LMP car was deigned entirely using CFD computer simulation technology which Wirth was to subsequently use in the design of the Manor F1 car.
Over the years Manor Motorsport employed a number of drivers who were to go on to win the Formula One title, including Kimi Raikkonen who won the 2000 Formula Renault 2.0 UK Championship with the team and Lewis Hamilton who won the Formula Renault 2.0 UK Championship in 2003.
Along the way Manor also enjoyed success with Antonio Pizzonia, Marc Hynes and Oliver Jarvis before Booth sold the Formula Renault UK operation in 2007.
Retaining the Manor Motorsport name Booth focussed on the Formula Three Euroseries and over the next few seasons enjoyed a certain degrees of success with drivers such as Lucas di Grassi, Paul di Resta, Kohei Hirate, James Jakes and Sam Bird.
Since its foundation, Manor Motorsport had enjoyed 170 race wins and 19 championship titles… now for the next step.
On 12 June 2009, the FIA announced that Manor Grand Prix had been granted an entry in the 2010 world championship the Yorkshire outfit having agreed a deal to use Cosworth engines.
However, just weeks after Manor's entry was officially confirmed reports surfaced suggesting that all might not be what it appeared.
A number of existing teams were said to be on the verge of launching a formal complaint to the FIA with regards Alan Donnelly's - the FIA's Chief Steward and official representative of the President - relationship with Manor, claiming that he had escorted a senior Manor executive around the paddock at a European grand prix. Donnelly is a former Labour MEP for Tyne and Wear who subsequently became leader of the European Parliamentary Party.
To add fuel to the fire, the Guardian reported that on 29 May - two weeks before the FIA announced the identity of the three successful bidders for a place on the 2010 grid - Donnelly had sent a sponsorship and investment agreement about Manor to a certain 'Royal Highness' who he hoped to meet in Saudi Arabia. If Donnelly really was touting around investment opportunities in the team before it got to the grid it raised huge conflict of interest issues. By selling stakes in Manor, Donnelly would have been helping the team get investment which thereby improved its financial position. Clearly, no one connected to the FIA should have been favouring any prospective teams and particularly one which had the involvement of Nick Wirth, a former business partner of Max Mosley.
Despite the unease and talk of legal threats and appeals to the European Commission, all went quiet until, on November 30 when the FIA released the official entry list for the 2010 season. Where one expected to see the name 'Manor Grand Prix' one instead found 'Virgin Racing'.
While details remained sketchy it appeared that Richard Branson had finally bought into F1 though we would have to wait a further couple of weeks for the official story.
On 14 December, the day before Virgin was due to host a media event giving details of its team it was revealed that the private equity arm of the Lloyds Banking Group had taken a stake in Virgin Racing. While the deal was 'only' worth £10m - small fry in F1 terms - Lloyds was one of the banks that had been baled out by the British taxpayer, the deal coming just months after the outcry over the Royal Bank of Scotland's (RBS) spending on the sport.
At next day's team launch Virgin Racing was described as "a new team for a new era", a team which would "combine the firepower of one of the most recognised, respected and exciting brands in the world with a racing team concept that looks to exploit and capitalise upon F1's new economic dawn and the challenges of resource restriction that is redefining the sport."
Richard Branson, John Booth and Nick Wirth all grinned from ear-to-ear as they introduced their drivers - Timo Glock, Lucas di Grassi, Alvaro Parente and Luiz Razia - and management team Alex Tai (Team Principal) and Etienne de Villiers (non-executive Chairman).
Less than month later however, Tai was out replaced as Team Principal by Booth while Graeme Lowdon was appointed CEO.
However, as the team looked forward to its debut season, a number of questions remained but only Pitpass appeared to be asking them.
Following the announcement that Virgin's Tai had been replaced by Manor's Booth, Pitpass business editor Chris Sylt wanted to know why Tai was not replaced by another Virgin executive. If Virgin owned a significant stake in the team one would have thought that it would need its investment represented on the board of the team by another of its executives and not someone who represents its co-shareholder Manor.
Then again, as Sylt pointed out, maybe Virgin doesn't own a stake in Manor at all, let alone a majority shareholding.
On 15 December, in the wake of the team's launch, Richard Branson told BBC Sport that Virgin had signed a three-year title sponsorship deal that did not involve any equity in the team. He added that Virgin had "lent the team some money."
Consequently, Sylt asked; "If Virgin does not have any equity in the team who does? Indeed, if Virgin does not own any equity in the team why on earth was Tai its chief executive in the first place?"
A skilled investigative business journalist, Sylt wrote: "As a Sheffield-based UK company you would have thought that it should be easy enough to confirm the team's ownership from official filings but this is far from the case."
In fact, Manor Grand Prix is owned by three mysterious companies including the strangely-named WR Energia and Astra 100. None of these companies has yet to file any details of who owns them and Astra 100 does not even appear on UK company records so one can only guess where it is based.
As we already know, one party which certainly owns a stake in the team is the private equity arm of the Lloyds Banking Group. Given that the UK taxpayer owns 43.4% of Lloyds surely it is the government's responsibility to reveal exactly where this public money is being invested. The fact that this has not been revealed by either Lloyds or Virgin left Sylt wondering whether they believed that the public would not be impressed to find out who its co-investors in Manor really are.
One entity which certainly knows who owns Manor is the FIA since the team will have been required to send these details to the federation as part of the due diligence process when it applied for a grid slot. If Virgin is to be believed regarding the claim that it has no equity in the team then we are also left wondering why the FIA allowed it to be named Virgin Racing.
Consequently, while we look forward to welcoming a new team and an iconic brand into F1, there are a number of worrying questions that still need to be answered.
Technical Specifications
VR-01
Construction: Carbon fibre construction monocoque and nosebox
Wishbones: Virgin Racing carbon fibre construction with titanium flexure joints
Uprights: Virgin Racing aluminium alloy construction
Dampers: Penske
Wheels: BBS
Tyres: Bridgestone Potenza
Fuel cell: 'FT5' safety specification
Fuel capacity: In excess of 200 litres
Brakes Calipers: AP Racing 6 pot calipers
Discs/pads: Hitco Carbon-Carbon
Steering wheel: Virgin Racing carbon fibre construction
Power steering: Virgin Racing hydraulic steering assist
Driver seat: Anatomically formed carbon composite
Seat belts: Six-point harness (75mm shoulder straps with HANS system)
ECU and logging system: FIA standard ECU & FIA homologated electronic & electrical system
Gearbox: Virgin Racing precision aluminium construction with 7-speed, longitudinally mounted Xtrac internals
Differential: Electronically controlled hydraulic differential
Gear Selection: Paddle operated hydraulic shift system with "seamless shift"
Clutch: AP Racing
Driveshafts: One–piece driveshafts with integral tripod joints
Dimensions
Overall Length: Approx 5500 mm
Overall Height: Approx 950 mm
Overall Width: Approx 1800 mm
Wheelbase: Approx 3200 mm
Engine - Cosworth CA2010
Duty Cycle Type: 4 stroke reciprocating piston, normally aspirated
Configuration: 8 cylinders in banked V configuration with an angle of 90 degrees
Construction: Cast aluminium alloy cylinder block and head, forged aluminium pistons, steel crankshaft
Capacity: 2,400cc
Valves: 32 with pneumatic valve springs
Maximum Speed: Limited to 18,000rpm
Timing: Double overhead cams driven via compliant gear from crankshaft
Mass: In excess of 95kg
Cylinder Bore: Less than 98mm
Fuelling: 8 injectors supplied by a pressurized system at 100bar
Ignition: 8 ignition coils each driving single spark plug
Lubrication: Dry sump
Spark Plugs: Champion
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