Branson's first contact with the world of the Great Circus was back in 2009, when he sponsored the little “gold mine” team called Brawn GP. The Brackley based organization won the championship that season and brought Branson an immense profit in terms of brand exposure (approximately $60 million worth).
After starting his own team in the series in 2010, the Virgin Group boss did not invest a whole lot of money into his squad – despite announcing a title bid in 3 years time at the team's launch event – leading F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone to state publicly that Virgin Racing is “a nickel and dime operation.”
As a comparison, Red Bull's Dietrich Mateschitz also started his own team a few years back and, 5 seasons later, the squad won the F1 title. That effort was however sustained with plenty of finances, something that Glock admits would like to see happen at Virgin also.
“Red Bull has been in formula one a few years more,” said Glock when asked by the Frankfurter Rundschau to make a comparison between his team owner and Mateschitz, “and I don't know what Mateschitz invested in the second year of his team.”
“The name of Richard Branson is attractive for sponsors, and of course it would be nice if he would invest some more in the team. But he has his plan,” added the German driver.
Glock, labeled by triple world champion Niki Lauda as a “good man who deserves a good team”, seems once again doomed to spend another year in the rear part of the F1 field, as the newly-developed MVR-02 has proved the slowest car of the pack during the winter testing.
For the second year running, the British team decided not to use any wind-tunnel work when developing their F1 single-seater and the results are accordingly. Glock himself admitted recently that his car has an aerodynamic problem that situates it one second behind nearest rivals Team Lotus.
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