McLaren tie-up could shift Virgin

The Dinnington-based team have signed a long-term technical partnership with McLaren that will grant them use of selected technologies and facilities at the Formula 1 super power’s factory in Surrey.

It is a partnership intended to help Virgin close the gap on their rivals and one team principal John Booth hails as ‘excellent’ for the team.

But further news that they are planning on moving to a new purpose-built facility in two years to bring the company under one roof suggests their days at the old Manor Motorsport factory in the former Rotherham pit village could be numbered.

Booth’s team are currently spread between their Dinnington headquarters and Wirth Research in Banbury, Oxfordshire, a company they recently acquired despite Nick Wirth’s departure from the team in May.

They also have a promotion hub in London and significant influence from Moscow, where Virgin’s major backers Marussia Motors are based, to combine with the new partnership with the McLaren operation in Surrey.

Although the impressive site at Dinnington which Booth moved his Manor team to in the early 2000s has been regularly upgraded, it has a finite amount of room and when measured against the size of a McLaren garage provides a microcosm of the challenge the team faces on the track.

Nothing is decided yet on the eventual location of the epicentre of Marussia Virgin Racing as the team will continue to be split between Dinnington and Banbury over the next two years while the new facility is planned and built.

Proud Yorkshireman Booth is confident the Dinnington base is big enough to house an entire Formula 1 operation. However, with the team’s increasing activity down south their future may be outside the White Rose.

The deal struck with McLaren, nonetheless, is a real coup and a partnership that begins immediately ahead of the weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Booth told the Yorkshire Post in May that it was something Virgin were exploring and the finer details of that proposal were revealed yesterday.

The main thrust is that Virgin will make use of McLaren’s wind-tunnel testing chamber.

Since their inception, Booth and Wirth had tested their cars via the radical computational fluid design (CFD) method as it was considered greener and cheaper.

But the link up with McLaren enables them to utilise the same technologies at the disposal of each of their rivals on the grid.

The team intend to continue using CFD but acknowledge that to improve the aerodynamics of a car that is consistently the second slowest in Formula 1, every option has to be explored.

Virgin will benefit from access to McLaren facilities, knowledge and capabilities. They can use test rigs, driver-in-the-loop simulators, supply chain experience and CFD and CAE techniques including race strategy tools.

McLaren management and production staff will also be embedded within Virgin, working in roles permitted by the Concorde Agreement.

Virgin chief executive Andy Webb said: “When we undertook our detailed review of the team in the first half of 2011, it was clear that our bold ambitions for the future would need to be matched with some equally bold steps towards achieving them.

“McLaren is one of the most prestigious and successful marques in Grand Prix history, with an enviable record of success over many years. We can benefit enormously from McLaren’s far-reaching techniques and capabilities and I have no doubt that this partnership will see us take the technical steps necessary to make a significant leap forwards.

“In addition, our acquisition of the WRT Formula 1 business ensures continuity of technical infrastructure for the period ahead, which means that the transition to working with our new technical partner can begin immediately and is not frustrated by logistical considerations. Our three-centre operation has served us well in our formative years but our ambitions for the future will rely on the full might of the team coming together under one roof.”

From McLaren’s point of view the deal is a helping hand to a smaller team. It is in their interests for the gap between the top of the paddock and the bottom to be narrowed, in short to ensure less traffic when it comes to lapping the tail-enders.

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said: “Virgin will be able to access properties that are state-of-the-art, and we confidently expect the team to derive significant benefits from them.”

Virgin will continue with Cosworth engines, while Williams have announced they will be reuniting with Renault engines from next season.