Performances are not matched by placings to Virgin’s chagrin

Timo Glock and Jerome D’Ambrosio completed the fifth double finish for the Yorkshire team this season, but final positions of 21st and 22nd respectively, were ultimately a source of frustration.

Skilled driving from German Glock saw him gain three positions by passing both Lotus drivers and a Toro Rosso car on the first lap.

But once his opponents were able to activate the DRS, or movable rear wing, they had more power on the straights to retake the Virgin driver.

“Once the DRS was enabled I couldn’t keep Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli behind me and after that I just ran my own race,” said Glock, whose lap record of 1.38:683 when racing for Toyota two years ago, was not beaten.

“I was quite comfortable being able to run at a good pace although at the end we had a bit of a fuel pick-up problem and I had to save fuel.

“But in general I’m very happy with the weekend and I’ve retained my lap record here.

“It’s a bit of a shame to have a good race and still finish 21st where you started, but with nobody having technical issues or first lap incidents, that’s all you can do.”

Team principal John Booth, whose team return home to prepare for their home grand prix at Silverstone next weekend, said: “Overall it was a pleasing result with both cars taking the flag and Jérôme improving from his qualifying position yesterday by overtaking Vitantio Liuzzi on track.

“This means that the cars finished in the correct pace order compared to our most direct rivals.

“Looking on the positive side, we seem to have moved closer towards our nearest competitor ahead of us on the grid.

“However, with such strong reliability throughout the field it’s a little disappointing to end up 21st and 22nd.

“We got the strategy about right, although perhaps we should have stopped Jerome slightly earlier in the first stint as he was just falling into the second stage of tyre degradation but unfortunately we were already stopping Timo on that lap.

“Towards the end of the race with Timo we spotted an issue with fuel dropouts in turn one, which meant he was having to back off.”

D’Ambrosio, who qualified behind the HRT of Liuzzi, said: “The main thing for me right now is to improve on my Saturday performance.”