Virgin Racing Aims To Make Profit

In unveiling his company’s title sponsorship of the newly monikered Virgin Racing F1 team, Richard Branson has declared that the team will try to break new ground for the sport by recording a profit.

Virgin Racing, initially registered as the Manor F1 team, will have the lowest operating budget of all the teams lining up on the grid in 2010.

Commented Branson: ‘The new era is seeing the costs of entry come down. This will be the lowest-budget team in Formula One. Money’s not everything. They are determined to prove that via engineering prowess, great drivers and a great affinity with the public they can do well.’

Virgin aim to challenge on the newly expanded 13-team grid with a budget of £40m and Branson said his group’s main input would be providing use of the Virgin brand.

‘There are a billion people who watch Formula One and most of them are fanatical and the Virgin brand is maybe one of the top 20 brands in the world.

‘Our involvement is the naming of the team and some money. We’ve lent a bit of money and then, on the back of the brand, the team is managing to get a lot of sponsors.’

Branson, whose Virgin group backed Brawn GP in its debut season last year, accepts history will not repeat itself with a double championship-winning success.

‘We like to be winners in the end but we aren’t expected to be as lucky as we were last year, this year. But we have every chance of doing respectably well. This is the last 100%-owned British team and I think if Virgin hadn’t got involved I don’t think Manor would have happened.’

Virgin Racing launched with nine sponsor partners, none of which have been involved in F1 before.

Brazilian novice Lucas di Grassi was unveiled as ex-Toyota driver Timo Glock’s teammate completing Virgin Racing’s driver line-up for 2010.