The recurrence of a hydraulic problem meant that the new Virgin team missed out on some much needed dry track time on Day 3 of the four day Jerez test.
Lucas di Grassi was back in the VR-01 but could not take advantage of the long-awaited sunny conditions. He was limited to just 34 laps as the team were forced to troubleshoot the problem in the garage rather than embark on their testing programme.
Nick Wirth, Technical Director of Virgin Racing, explained the problems facing the team in Jerez. “After being delayed by a small spin this morning on a drying track, we ran through some critical race-related procedures which we haven't had time to get to so far during testing. Once the track had completely dried, we started our performance work but we were again frustrated by a reoccurrence of one of our known hydraulic issues. This stopped Lucas from doing more than a handful of flying laps and then finally prevented any more meaningful running, so he didn't get up to speed today. The hydraulic issue caught us out on the first day of this test and since Wednesday we've been forced to run conservatively until a new solution is available for the Barcelona test.”
Wirth is hopeful that reliability improves so his driver can get more experience in the car. “We'll try and put some more fixes in place tonight to allow us to get some more laps in tomorrow. We're very aware that Lucas has had very little running so far and we hope to improve things so he can get more seat time at the Barcelona test next week.”
