It may seem lazy of me but I thought that these blog postings were so thoroughly well put together that there was no point in me having my say without giving you the opportunity to read them in full.
The first and most interesting post is http://f1professor.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/a-step-too-far-virgin-racing-revert-back-to-wind-power/ by Professor Mark Jenkins - always well thought out, concise, and interesting. This is about Virgin bringing their cars into the wind tunnel and no longer relying solely on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for their design.
I, personally, am of the opinion that they had no chance at success if they relied solely on CFD and made that point when previewing the season on March 14th just before Melbourne (Virgin being at the back of the grid my comments are in the final paragraph - excuse my spelling of competitive!). Now HRT have done a deal with Mercedes for the use of their "spare" wind tunnel at Brackley it is only a matter of time before they pass a CFD designed Virgin and begin fighting with Lotus, probably with Mercedes Engines.
Apparently Virgin parted company with Wirth Partnership, who operate the CFD designing and ordering upgrades to the car, after Pat Symonds, Team Consultant and Crashgate Phoenix, gave a bleak assessment of the teams position at Monaco. Adam Cooper's Blog gives an insight into the tangled politics of Marussia Virgin now that Nick Wirth has left the role of Technical Director and has updated the story today.
I would say that Virgin can't get into the wind tunnel fast enough!
