Marussia Virgin Racing launches MVR-02 in London

Entering their second year in Formula One, Virgin Racing, now called Marussia Virgin Racing launched on Monday the team’s 2011 challenger: the MVR-02. The launch event took place at BBC Television Centre in London.

Virgin had extra time to work on the MVR-02 after running an interim car during testing in Valencia. The new design will be making its track debut over in Jerez when F1 comes back to testing on Thursday.

The name VR was changed to MVR because of the new partnership between Virgin and Russian sportscar firm Marussia Motors. This has also led to some modifications on the 2011 livery.

In its debut season Virgin finished at the bottom of the constructors’ overall standings. Reliability was the main problem concerning Virgin in 2010, putting the team behind the other newcomer teams Lotus and Hispania.

Using the unique all-computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach to design the MVR-02, the design team, led by Nick Wirth, hope that their work will put Virgin in a position to threaten the established midfield teams for points

For the 2011 Virgin maintains Timo Glock as lead driver, who is now joined by Jerome d'Ambrosio.