During the latest Australian Grand Prix qualifying session on Saturday, both Virgin racers were tenths of a second away from failing to make the 107 percent cut at the end of Q1, only Sebastian Vettel's slower pace granting them permission to join the field the next day. And Glock fears next time he and teammate Jerome D'Ambrosio may not be so lucky.
“At one point we were 105 [per cent] off,” argued the German driver, who admitted that Virgin wouldn't have survived a quicker pace from the Red Bulls. “But if the other guys put soft tyres on and really go for it in Q1, we will be massively in trouble. The balance of the car is not that bad. Simply, we just have not enough downforce, and the people in the team have to realize that.”
In addition, he outspokenly criticized his team for not making the necessary steps in terms of car's performance throughout the winter, even though the structure of the team has obviously followed an ascending trend.
“We went forward in terms of the whole structure of the team,” added Glock, according to Autosport, “the work from the mechanics and engineering side much better than last year. But performance wise, in my opinion, we moved backwards. (...) The team has to think about certain things and make changes to get us closer. We cannot continue like this. It's not possible.”
Marussia Virgin Racing is the only team in the F1 paddock to use Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) exclusively when designing their F1 car. Could that be the problem?
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