New Virgin racing CEO Alex Tai has confidently asserted that the sport of Formula One is not the terrifying closed shop that many outsiders believe it to be, saying that his team has the character to survive in the pit lane.
Tai assumed the position as the Virgin Racing team principal after the Manor GP team was renamed after it's link-up with Richard Branson's amusingly-named brand. Tai will work alongside Manor boss John Booth in the running of the team, with Branson assuming a more nebulous role in the background of the new team.
And Tai, whose background doesn't include any motorsport experience, but rather running other areas of the Virgin empire, like Branson's new Virgin Galactic passenger spaceflight project, says that he is more than ready to get stuck in with the job of running a Formula One team.
He cited past Virgin successes, such as their successful music, aeroplane and train companies, as examples that the team will be able to hold their own in another new venture.
“I have to say that there is a certain amount of mystique in Formula 1 that it is this mafia body that you get involved with,” Tai claimed, "But the Virgin brand has been in much more difficult circumstances in the past.
"When Richard started in the record industry, that’s not the easiest industry; in the airline industry there are an incredible amount of dirty tricks – which are very well-reported – that the Virgin brand strived through; and Richard turned around British Rail into a fantastic rail franchise. These are things that required an awful lot of grit and determination.
“We have a certain amount of character that we bring to Formula 1, and I’ve got to say that we come into a sport that’s turning over about $1.4 billion in revenues – whereas the Virgin Group turns over about £24 billion of revenues."
He added that: "It’s a very large group, and it’s a very diverse group. What we have is an attitude; this is something that Richard impresses on all of us that run businesses that have the Virgin name. The Virgin name is something that is difficult to get."
Tai added that Virgin had taken time with their 'toe in the water' sponsorship of Brawn GP last season to make sure that they could make a Formula One team work before signing up for a greater role in the running of the Manor team.
“The reason we have announced this now rather than at the beginning of the year is because we have to earn our credentials, so Richard needs to see a sound business plan, something that’s sustainable," Tai rambled.
"We do not want to be coming into the sport and then coming out again in a year’s time. We’ve had a very arduous process over the last six or seven months to earn our Virgin spurs as it were. What we’ve done is that we’ve found ourselves in a situation where the business model actually does work and where we believe we have sustainability.
“One of the things we need to do is show that we can bring something different; when Virgin Records existed, when Virgin Trains came along, when Virgin Atlantic came along, they had to provide a difference. What we want to do is to provide value for money – to our sponsors and to the billion fans around the world. There is a huge amount of passion that Richard and I felt when we came into Brawn last year that is not communicated very well to the public. The media absolutely need more access to the lifestyles of our drivers."
Tai also reiterated Branson's stated ams to make their F1 team a lot more open to the public and the fans in general, suggesting that past ventures from the company in providing services for customers using their airline meant that Virgin Racing would be able to bring "a little bit of attitude" to F1.
“We’re not coming in as a very clinical engineering outfit; there is that, but in exactly the same way as Virgin Atlantic goes to work and is absolutely a very professional, safety-conscious airline, it also has a little bit of attitude and a little bit of fun and communicates better to its passengers," Tai gurned wackily.
"That’s exactly what we need to provide. Richard designed a club for our upper-class passengers at Heathrow, and he spends £14 million looking after people before they get on the ‘plane – now people turn up ten hours early to get on our flights! This is the sort of thing that we will bring; we will provide extra value to our customers, who are the fan base, but before we do that we need to earn their respect and the respect of our peers in the paddock.”
Tai went on to explain that his own role would see him working closely with the other teams through FOTA, saying that the "collective health" of Formula One was a high priority, as well as ensuring that the team fought "tooth and nail" on track.
“What we’re finding, and what I’m finding sitting on the F1 Commission and in FOTA, is that everyone needs to look at the collective health of the sport," he said, “We’re finding that there’s an awful lot of help and assistance being given to us by other teams, because we all realise that our collective health is based upon a stable platform in the sport.
"We will fight tooth-and-nail on-track, we will absolutely drive through other teams on the way to success on-track – but we will probably be very collegiate off the track and behind closed doors."
He also said that his team would look to make F1 accessible for drivers from different backgrounds, promising to look at ways to "open up" the sport to drivers from poorer backgrounds, or from countries where F1 is not yet popular.
“We want to make the sport more accessible,” Tai bellowed, “and not just as a participant’s sport for rich kids. That’s not a democratisation of the sport. We are looking for ways now to try to open up and give the opportunity to drivers of all economic backgrounds, sexes and countries to be able to access the sport.
"This is something that every new team says when it comes into the sport, so before we start talking definitively about how we’re going to do it, we’re going to pressure-test the system and make sure it works – and then we’ll come out with the plans.”
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