Virgin technical chief Nick Wirth has said that he "nearly burst into tears" when former Toyota and Jordan driver Timo Glock signed for the team, saying that the German's decision to race for them was a major boost for the team.
Glock signed for the team to spearhead Virgin Racing's efforts as part of a long term plan to build the team up, and was known to be in discussions with other, more well-established teams when he decided to go with the former Manor outfit instead.
And Wirth, who has designed the new Virgin car solely on computer, without using a wind tunnel, said that the faith shown by Glock, who was out of a drive after the withdrawal of Toyota from the sport at the end of 2009, was a major boost to a team in need of an experienced F1 driver to help them to develop.
Wirth likened Glock's decision with a similar incident during his time designing sportscars for the Acura company, who secured the services of experienced sportscar driver, and former colleague of Wirth at the failed 90's Simtek F1 team, David Brabham to head up their project.
"The day Timo signed I nearly burst into tears, I couldn't believe it," Wirth blubbed to reporters today.
"I stuck my whole company's reputation and our contract on the line at one particular moment during the Acura programme to get David Brabham to drive the car, because David was one of my F1 drivers [at Simtek], and I know as an engineer how critical it is to have a lead driver with lots of experience and who is someone you can trust, and who is quick and all the other bits and pieces."
He added that he had been worried that the Virgin team would have been forced to sign two inexperienced pay drivers for 2010, which would have hindered their chances to develop the car in their first year in the sport.
"I said to management, I hope we're not forced to get two young, inexperienced drivers who help the finance by bringing budget," he explained.
"And when Timo came along, quite late on in the process, on his way to look at another Formula 1 team, and we spent three hours together and he saw the process, he understood this digital [design] process because he's got friends who drive my Acuras.
"So he phones them up and says 'what's this nutter like, is he any good?', and they told him whatever, and he just flew back with his manager and said 'we're going to do this'."
He added the somewhat unlikely assertion that: "I was just literally over the moon.
"Timo to me represents all that I wanted - someone who has driven the slick tyres, he has two years' experience, he's a GP2 champion and he's so young, and so grounded."
Keen to spread his love for the team's 2010 drivers around, Wirth also took time to praise the team's second driver, GP2 veteran Lucas di Grassi, who was announced as a race driver with the team on the same day that the name change from Manor Grand Prix to Virgin Racing was announced.
"We've got a lot of engineers from Renault who have joined us," Wirth went on, "Lucas has been a test driver there for two years. They were super-enthusiastic about Lucas's testing ability, feedback and skill."
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