[GolddustMini]

i dont think virgin have done so badly, their early races were blighted with hydraulics issues and the fule tank issue but they are consistantly on a similar pace to lotus during qualifying atleast and they tend to both be similar over the race, albeit with lotus enjoying better reliability. Virgin are attempting to do something very different on a very stretched budget and im sure given time they will improve speed and reliability

I think the severe lack of testing for these new guys is posing a problem although its interesting to note that non of the new teams are pounding round from start to finish throughout free practices to maximising the track time.

I think next year will be a watershed year for all the new teams, lotus look very secure both financially, virgin are probably at the behest of bransons cash and when he gets bored and HRT well who knows whats going to happen with HRT, whos even going to build their car for next year!?


Frank williams fight against customer cars i can understand, if your the 4th or 5th best team on the grid and then three new teams crop up running customer cars from the top 3 manufacturers straight away your down to being the 8th best team on the grid, your stock is reduced, your ability to raise that all important cash for development is also reduced and you start to struggle financially, which effects your position and the spiral continues. The main issue i see is that allowing customer cars means that you can buy performance cheaper in buying a manufacturers cast offs cheaper than you could design and develop your own car, and therefore it becomes less favourable to become a constructor... frank is only trying to protect his team as a midfielder.
Obviously the irony is that frank started his team by running customer cars!