“I was not particularly pleased, because comments like that for a team like ours can do great damage,” responded Booth in an interview with motorsport-total.com. “It is difficult for us at the moment – as it is for other teams, and for all the new teams,” continued the Virgin Racing team boss.
According to Booth, his team has not done the greatest of jobs in its first season in Formula One, but was at least committed to improving in the series race after race, while also managing to keeping its sponsors and appearing on the grid every racing weekend.
“If you look at what we have built up so far, it's not all bad. In formula one there have been probably 30 or 40 new teams, some of which never qualified for a race. But we are there at the start of every race and, step by step, we are getting closer,” added Booth, who even suggested his team has done better than initially expected: “We are where we expected we would be, and maybe even a bit further ahead than that.”
That really makes us wonder what were Virgin's expectations for the 2010 season, if their car is still about 3 to 4 seconds slower than the pace setters after 12 races in the ongoing campaign and its team boss sees that as “better than expected.”
But anyway, getting back to Booth's race qualifying comments, the 2011 season might not see Virgin on the grid of each GP, as the International Automobile Federation (FIA) has already confirmed the return of the 107 percent qualifying rule in the sport. Under that rule, the cars that won't set a lap time within 107 percent of the fastest time in qualifying will not make the Sunday grid.
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