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Glock and di Grassi finish for Virgin

Virgin team principal John Booth hailed his team’s working mentality as Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi were finally rewarded for their efforts, with their first double finish of the season.

Timo Glock managed to finish the race in eighteenth position. However, the German driver’s race did not run entirely to plan when with five laps remaining he suffered a loss in power steering. As a result, Glock was forced to drive the remainder of the race in fifth gear, but still managed to bring the car home to the delight of his team.

Lucas di Grassi also recorded a respectable drive after overcoming an oil leak, minutes before the start of the race, to finish in nineteenth – albeit three laps down.

Timo Glock – 18th:“It was a tough race for the team today so it was great for us to get both cars to the chequered flag and take some reward for all the hard work that has gone into this weekend. The start was disappointing for me because we stalled on the grid, which enabled Senna to pass me. I was stuck behind him for the first 18 laps and just couldn’t get close enough to overtake him but then I got him in turn 12. From that point on I could go quite a bit quicker and had a better race. We had a good pitstop and on the option tyre the car felt okay and we had reasonable speed. Unfortunately, five laps from the end, I felt a drop in the power steering assist and the team advised me to stay in fifth gear in order to finish the race. But it’s good that we managed to keep the car going and end the day as the best new team.”

Lucas di Grassi – 19th:
“We have had a lot of problems during this weekend, especially regarding the engine, but we achieved our target of getting both cars to the finish and ending the weekend as the best of the new teams. We demonstrated once again that our reliability is improving and what we need to do now is focus on improving the car so that we can be faster and consistently be the best new team at every race.”

John Booth, Team Principal:“To finish the race with both cars and as the best of the new teams is a fantastic reward for the whole team, who’ve worked incredibly hard all weekend to contend with the various issues that cropped up. After the power loss issue with the engine yesterday, the very last thing we needed just an hour before the race was an issue with the engine oil system, which had us taking the car to pieces to get to the engine when we would have been in the final throes of our race countdown. On one side of the garage we were calmly executing the grid sequence with Timo, but it was quite a different story on the other side of the garage where the guys were faced with the seemingly impossible odds to get Lucas’ car together and out into the race. They were an absolute credit to us today.”

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