Exclusive: Yorkshire’s F1 team will transfer out of the county to move closer to McLaren

The team born out of the single-seater operation Booth launched from his own Rotherham garage two decades ago, has outgrown its Dinnington base and will move to a temporary home in Banbury in December.

A permanent headquarters will be built near Silverstone, Northamptonshire, during 2012.

The move was mooted back in July when Virgin announced a technical partnership with Formula 1 powerhouse McLaren.

McLaren is based in Surrey, and with Virgin spread between Rotherham, Oxfordshire and a commercial base in London, as well as benefiting from significant financial interest from Russia, it appeared only a matter of time before the operation would come under one roof closer to the motor sport heartland of the south Midlands.

For team principal Booth, who plotted the team’s surprise inclusion into the world’s richest sport in the Spring of 2009 when they were still under the guise of his Formula 3 team Manor Motorsport, it is a sad step, but one he concedes the team must take if they are to fulfil their ambitions.

“It’s almost become inevitable,” he told the Yorkshire Post yesterday from Monza.

“I’m a very proud Yorkshireman, have been for 57 years, and I’m proud of my Yorkshire roots.

“But we experimented with two or three bases and long term it was too much of a stretch.

“Banbury is in the middle and we have got to get used to the idea. It’s also closer to our McLaren link-up in Surrey.

“We are still looking for a permanent base in the Silverstone area. That’s going to be 12 to 18 months, though.

“In the meantime we will be moving the operation to a temporary base in Banbury.”

Over the last two years the team has pumped tens of thousands of pounds into expanding their home at Manor Drive, Dinnington, from one unit into two.

It is from here the trucks depart for grand prix weekends, where the cars are worked on during breaks in the calendar, and where drivers Timo Glock and Jerome D’Ambrosio visit to make their own technical adjustments to the make-up of the MVR01 and 02 cars.

Virgin also employ a lot of Yorkshire-based, Formula 1-experienced engineers.

But from the end of the year all the F1 work will be conducted at Banbury, which is only 63 miles from the test rigs, driver simulator and wind tunnel technology the team can tap into at the McLaren base. The distance between Dinnington and McLaren is 167 miles.

The South Yorkshire facility will still bear the name of Marussia Virgin Racing, but its use from next year onwards will be for the team’s GP3 outfit and as a centre for their young driver programme.

Booth said: “We are going to redevelop the Dinnington site as an educational facility.

“We certainly don’t want the facility to go to waste.

“It will be focused on talented young drivers and it would be great to have a location where young drivers from Britain and Russia can learn the sport.”

Booth also revealed that discussions are ongoing to sign D’Ambrosio for another season, with an announcement on the Belgian’s future expected to be made around the final grand prix of the season in Brazil.

“Jerome has done a fantastic job,” said Booth. “He gets better and better each grand prix.”

Virgin begin today’s practice session for the Italian Grand Prix hoping the end of the European season will mark their 10th double finish of the season.

They arrive at Monza with bodywork upgrades before beginning the fly-away races in Singapore later this month with a more comprehensive aerodynamic package of updates that includes floor and exhausts.

“The plan is for the Singapore upgrade to help us shave a few tenths of a second off our lap times,” added Booth. “Our reliability has been good, we still just need to find that extra pace.

“At Monza, the cars have to be set up with a special low-downforce aerodynamic profile to minimise drag.”