Another team with a change of name for 2012, the squad formerly known as Virgin Racing takes on the Marussia title to reflect the scale of involvement and investment - the Russian sports car company now has in the fledgling operation. The squad's bid to move up the grid will also be aided by access to McLaren's impressive technical facilities, including the multiple champions' state-of-the-art wind tunnel and simulation tools.
At the heart of the Banbury-based operation remains died-in-the-wool racer John Booth, whose hugely successful Manor Motorsport operation was the basis on which he gained F1 entry for the 2010 season. Established in 1990, a string of future F1 stars passed through the Manor ranks in junior formula including world champions Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton, along with Paul di Resta.
Virgin Racing was launched in conjunction with former Benetton and Simtek technical chief Nick Wirth and famously pioneered an all-computational fluid dynamics (CFD) car design with the VR-01. However, the new squad suffered huge embarrassment in their early races when it was discovered that the car's fuel tank was too small. The solution? Drivers Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi would have to run at a reduced speed if they were to reach the end of the race, although such were the myriad of reliability problems the new car suffered in the early weeks that the team didn't record a two-car finish until a new chassis was pressed into service for the start of the European season.
Wirth had continued to enthusiastically champion the purely CFD method despite a disappointing series of results which only saw Virgin fall further away from main rivals Lotus and the two parties eventually parted company, former Renault engineering chief Pat Symonds having by now come aboard as a consultant.
Although Virgin's reliability record greatly improved with last year's MVR-02, the team were again beaten by HRT in the Constructors' Championship and so moving up from 12th place in the standings is the first priority in the season ahead. The experienced Timo Glock remains on board to again lead their challenge alongside his third new team-mate in as many years, promising French star Charles Pic.
