Virgin Racing emerged from a partnership between Manor Motorsport and Wirth Research, with Richard Branson's Virgin Group acquiring an 80% stake at the end of 2009. Nick Wirth, a former Simtek team owner, served as technical director and staked the entire development program on CFD alone, arguing that wind tunnels were becoming obsolete and that CFD capacity could replace them at a fraction of the cost. The team operated on a budget of approximately £40 million, the lowest of any 2010 grid entrant.
The VR-01 was powered by a Cosworth CA2010 V8 engine, badged as a Virgin-Cosworth. The car passed its mandatory FIA crash tests and completed its first track run at Silverstone on 4 February 2010. Pre-season testing immediately revealed a chronic hydraulic reliability problem that would persist throughout the year. More critically, it emerged that the fuel tank was too small for the car to complete a full race distance at normal fuel consumption rates. The FIA granted Virgin permission to modify the chassis mid-season, and a revised longer underbody was introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Drivers Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi campaigned the VR-01 throughout 2010. The car consistently qualified at the back of the field alongside the other two new entrants, Lotus Racing and Hispania. Hydraulic failures retired both cars at the opening Bahrain Grand Prix, and reliability remained a season-long struggle. Di Grassi scored Virgin's first race finish in Malaysia with a 14th place. Glock achieved a strong 14th at the Japanese Grand Prix. Neither driver scored a championship point, and Virgin finished last in the Constructors' Championship below Hispania, a result partly determined by Virgin's reliability disadvantages early in the year when HRT managed some classified finishes.
The team's own internal review, led by former Renault engineering director Pat Symonds, concluded that the CFD-only development philosophy had not produced the expected results. Subsequent upgrades to the VR-01 showed limited performance gains compared to conventional wind-tunnel programs. The review directly led to the decision to end the partnership with Wirth Research in June 2011 during the successor MVR-02's season, and Virgin subsequently signed an agreement with McLaren Applied Technologies for wind-tunnel access and technical support for 2012.
The VR-01 holds a unique place in Formula One history as the first car to enter competition developed entirely without a wind tunnel. While the experiment failed on competitive grounds, it highlighted both the potential and the limitations of purely computational aerodynamic development at that era of Formula One technology. The team itself survived, being rebranded as Marussia Virgin Racing after Marussia Motors acquired a controlling stake in November 2010, and subsequently as the Marussia F1 Team.