Virgin F1 testing cut short

(GETTY IMAGES)

Virgin Racing's preparations for the new Formula One season suffered a setback today as the team was forced to bring a halt to its participation in the test session at Jerez due to a lack of spare parts.

The front wing of the new VR-01 failed while Timo Glock was putting the car through its paces and, with no replacement to hand, the team have been forced to withdraw from the rest of today's running.

"This morning we experienced a front wing mounting problem which caused the wing to come off the car at the beginning of a run," Virgin's technical director Nick Wirth said in quotes reported on http://www.formula1.com.

"The cause has already been identified. Unfortunately, we're missing one or two spare parts which will hopefully arrive this evening, so we won't be able to run for the rest of the day."

Virgin are one of four new teams to join the F1 grid in 2010 but have so far struggled to get a decent testing run under their belt.

Just five laps were possible yesterday at the first official shakedown of the car, which has been designed entirely by computers and without the aid of a wind tunnel.

The VR-01 finished over 17 seconds off the quickest time in yesterday's rain-affected session, but Wirth is nevertheless confident the team is moving in the right direction.

"In the short amount of running that we've achieved so far, we are very encouraged by what we've seen and we have gathered some vital aero data which is very much in the range of what we were predicting," Wirth added.

"We look forward to resuming the programme tomorrow morning."

Brazilian rookie Lucas di Grassi is set to take over from Glock in the Virgin driving seat from tomorrow.