Video: Virgin banish thoughts of Bahrain

It is a seminal date for the fledgling Yorkshire team as they embark on their dream journey into the multi-million pound world of F1.

The fire-up will take place in Bicester, Oxfordshire, where technical genius Nick Wirth has been designing and building the car. From there, the entire team heads to Silverstone next week for a shakedown of all technical aspects of the car before joining the likes of Ferrari and McLaren in Jerez, Spain, for the first of three testing sessions.

That will be the first opportunity to see how the new car measures up against the competition ahead of the season opener in Bahrain on March 14, which – if all goes to plan over the coming weeks – Virgin Racing will be a part of.

But John Booth, the former Rotherham driver whose Manor team provide the basis for the Virgin team, is refusing to let the team get ahead of themselves.

"It's just one step at a time. We are just working towards the fire-up, then to the shakedown at Silverstone," said Booth yesterday. "We just work to each deadline we set ourselves. It's a brand new team, we've had to start from scratch, you can imagine the organisational requirements that has presented us with.

"So we're just taking it one stage at a time and we'll think about Bahrain once we've finished testing."

Work continues on the second building at Virgin's Dinnington base and should be completed by the time the team returns from Spain, with the cars, at the end of February.

McLaren, for whom the last two world champions Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button will race, are expected to unveil their new car today.